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FLOWERS AND FOSSILS 



+^o«? 



AND 



OTHER POEMS. 



BY 



JOHN K. STAYMAN, 

PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT LANGUAGES AND CLASSICAL LITERATURE 
IN DICKINSON COLLEGE. 





PHILADELPHIA: 

CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

819 AND 821 Market Street. 
1870. 



T5 



'Xl''^ 



.^« 



Entered according to Act of Congress, iu the year 1S69, by 

CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in 

and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 

STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN & SOX. PRINTED BY MOORE BKOS. 



PRELUDE. 

'\/rY soul, attendant to the echoing Voices 
•^■^ That fill the mighty Past, 
Bows down and learns and worships and rejoices, 
In Time's cathedral vast. " 



I hear the music of the ancient Sages 

Blown from Earth's early morn ; 
I hear prelusive murmurs of the Ages 

That are, as yet, unborn. 

And as, in the dim aisles, sounds soft and oral 

Mingle and go and come, 
With reverent awe, awhile, at the great choral, 

My lips are stricken dumb. 

But soon, as with a kindred elevation, 

I rise and float along : 
Listening, I catch the rapturous inspiration, 

And join the swelling song. 



CONTENTS. 



PArJE 

FLOWERS AND FOSSILS 11 

THE THREE GREETINGS i 5 

SOUNDS BY THE SEA 17 

WHEN MAY UNCLASPS 19 

SONG OF THE WIND : ... 21 

METAMORPHOSIS 25 

THE WEDDING-DAY . . . ^w, 27 

ENDURANCE ^ 30 

WORDS BY THE WAY ......... 32 

RECURRENCE .......... 40 

BOAT-SONG 41 

LET ME DOUBT .......... 46 

MY CALENDARS . . . 47 

THE IDEAL 51 

TO THE BEE 53 

MY SAINT 5G 

ARCADY 57 

NEVERMORE 60 

THE THREE PARTINGS 70 

ALWAYS THE ROSE 71 

THIS WORLD IS ALL TOO FAIR 72 

AUTUMNAL 73 

TWO QUESTIONS 76 

OUTSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 78 

1^ V 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

A READING FROM THE ROCKS 79 

TO THE BLUEBIRD . . . .' 96 

THE OLD man's SONG 99 

MY WINE 101 

BEAUTY 102 

A MEDITATION 103 

LOVE DOTH BEAUTIFY THE DAY 107 

BLOOM OUT, FLOWERS 108 

DEATH . 110 

THE MIRACLE 116 

OUR KNOWLEDGE ALL IS GIRT ABOUT 119 

A MIST OF BUDS 121 

DUTY 123 

SONG OF THE WATER 124 

TO THE NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS 132 

TWO PICTURES ]34 

USE 136 

TIME, THAT SHAPED THE SWELLING BUDS .... 143 

WORDS FOR THE HEART 145 

GOD 147 

DE PROFUNDIS 149 

SONG OF THE ROSE 151 

THE MILL-STREAM 154 

HEAT . 158 

THE clown's SONG 160 

1 WALK THE GARDEN WHEN THE NIGHT 162 

TOUCH 164 

TO THE SNOW-BIRD . . . . . . . i . 167 

CEASE, FOOLISH HEART . 170 

PRETTY VIOLETS • . , 172 

THE POET 174 

SHOW ME DEATH 190 

A THOUGHT FOR CHRISTMAS 192 



CONTENTS. Vll 

PAQB 

THE HERBARIUM 194 

FROM THE KING TO THE CLOWN 195 

PROVIDENT 196 

ELIXIR VITJE 198 

THE CLOUD 200 

COMPENSATION 201 

THEN BID ME SING NO MORE 203 

BEFORE THE AUTUMN DAYS ARE GONE 205 

TO THE HUMMING-BIRD 211 

THE POPPY . .213 

WHO DID WIN THE POET's PRAISE? 21-1 

SEEDS . . . . . . . . . . . .216 

FROM DAWN TO DUSK 223 

OWNERSHIP 225 

ONTO THE HOURS 230 

ASPIRATION 231 

ONWARD ........... 233 

PALEONTOLOGICAL 235 

COME, FADING LIGHT 239 

THE PORCELAIN VASE 240 

CONFESSION 241 

A SONG OF SPRING 244 

GUIDANCE 247 

ON VIEWING A MUMMY 249 

THE SUMMER IS OVER . . ... . . . 251 

BENEATH THE STEEPLE's DIZZY HEIGHT 252 

NAUGHT RESTS AS IN AN END 254 

THE ROSE-BUD 255 

SONG OF THE CENTURIES . 257 

THE PACHA OF THREE TAILS ..... 1 . 274 

GO, HAPPY ARTIST 275 

ALTHOUGH NO ACT 276 

PATIENCE 277 



viii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
VAIN IS THE GLORY 278 

279 



COMFOUT . 

SONG OF THE SUNBEAM 



280 

284 



SHAKESPEARE 

IP ANY SONG 322 



FLOWERS AND FOSSILS. 



FLOWERS AND FOSSILS. 

TTTE waken suddenly from out the night, 

Into the dawn and glory of a light 
That almost blinds us. Sun and star and cloud 
Fill heaven's blue arch with wonder. We are bowed 
In mute amazement, not unmixed with fear. 
At the strange beauty of the shifting show. 
Our breath is hushed when the loud thunders go 
Crashing above us ; and we straightway hear 
The pattering music of the gentle rain. 
A mote gleams in the sunshine ; and again 
A world is dwarfed down to a glimmering point 
By depths of space. Our life seems out of joint 
With the great realms and the unending days 
That gird us round. We catch a passing gleam 
Of the old brightness. -Foot-prints of the ways 
Of the everlasting Ages sometimes seem 



12 FLOWERS AND FOSSILS. 

To cross our little goings ; and we find 

God lettering his Law upon the stone. 

The perished leaf has left its trace behind 

In rock and hill-side. Scarp and cliff make known 

The form and freshness of an early world 

Now done in fossils. Life that once lay curled 

In bud close-clasped, or sunned its growing grace 

In blossom but half-opened, shows the arrest 

Wrought by the mighty forces that embrace 

Its finer process. Here the shape is pressed 

Into the rock, which marks each little vein 

That pulsed to olden sunshine. Look again. 

And lo, from out the spot a spire upsprings. 

And feeds its rootlets in the early print 

Of by-gone beauty. 

Is not this a hint 
Of the world's course in countless other things, — 
Thought, word, belief, acts, institutions, laws. 
And men, and nations ? From a common cause 
All lives and changes, grows and blooms and dies, 
And hath its burial and rest awhile, 
Only to wait the ages and arise 
In other fashion and with sweeter smile 
Toward higher oflice. Naught that once has been, 



FLOWERS AND FOSSILS. 13 

Can wholly perish ; but must leave a mark, 
Though hidden for long centuries in the dark, 
That shall at last be shone upon and seen. 
The Present shows a fairer, fresher green, 
For all the brown dust of the buried Past. 
The soil, wherein the floweret lives and grows, 
Is but a fossil, crushed, and blent, and vast. 
Of nameless forms and forces. In the rose 
That shall to-morrow flush the Summer dawn. 
The mould revives, and shines more rich and rare 
Than all the earlier glory it put on, 
In other rounds of being. See how fair 
The violet's grace, the lily's snowy cup. 
That shape themselves from darkness and decay 
Into the light, and break the sunshine up 
To play of color. 

This is Nature's way 
"With the vast world. For more than side by side 
The flower and fossil stand. They are allied 
By living tie. They blend and interfuse. 
And so become one life. The light imbues 
The soil with heavenly radiance, through the seed 
And. growing germ which it doth hold and feed. 
Thus all is blent: and who shall truly say 
2 



14 FLOWERS AND FOSSILS. 

What thing is old and wholly past away, 
"Within the round of birth and growth and death, 
Swift change or slow transition? See the Law 
That moves and quickens all, as with the breath 
Of the Eternal ! . Though the days may draw 
To dim conclusion; and the tireless sun 
May wake the East, and climb awhile, and fall 
To dusk and silence; and the years may run 
The circle of the seasons; yet through all 
This night, sleep, winter, change, and dust, 
Life finds renewal, and the .soul a trust 
That out of wreck and death shall only come 
Shapes that are fairer, and a sweeter bloom. 



THE THREE GREETINGS. 15 



THE THREE GREETINGS. 

TTOW sweet the Morning broke, 

-^ What time I first awoke ! 
"Within the dawn afar 
There trembled many a star; 
On every branch and spray 
A dewy freshness lay; 
And from each bush and tree 
The birds did sing to me : 
And so, when I was born, 
It was Good Morn, Good Morn. 

Then came the Day, and brought 
His busy, wakeful thought. 
The' only star that shone 
Durst not be gazed upon ; 
The dew-drops all were fled 
To the far heaven o'er head ; 



16 THE THREE GREETINGS. 

And in each tree and bush 
There was a pause and hush : 
And so, 'twas hard to say, 
At times, Good Day, Good Day. 

How sweet doth Evening close, 
Now that I seek repose! 
Within the dusk afar 
There glimmers many a star; 
The dews begin to fall 
With freshness over all; 
And from each bush and tree 
Birds sing again to me: 
And so, to Love, Life, Light, 
I say Good Night, Good Night. 



SOUNDS BY THE SEA. 17 



SOUNDS BY THE SEA. 

A S I look upon the Ocean, wandering by the pebbly 
beach, 
How the breakers moan and whiten far as ear and eye 

can reach, 
And I listen to a music that my soul would set to speech. 

Wlierefore this unceasing motion, this unresting stir 

and roar? 
Though the winds have lulled to silence all along the 

shelving shore, 
Will the tumult ne'er be quiet, and the trouble never 

o'er? 

What a secret thou enclosest in thine ever-heaving 

breast, 
Of the ancient Worlds and Ages, of the wrecks long 

sunk to rest. 
And the far-off hope and promise of the Islands of the 

Blest. 
2* B 



18 SOUNDS BY THE SEA. 

Standing lost in awe and wonder, whereunto shall I 

compare 
All the mystery that fills me as I gaze upon thee there, 
As I hear thy thunder sounding through the azure 

depths of air? 

'T is the rhythm of the Endless, as thy billows fall and 

climb ; 
'T is the Boundless touching Limit with a melody 

sublime ; 
'T is the pulse of the Eternal, throbbing on the shores 

of Time. 



WHEN MAY UNCLASPS. 19 



WHEN MAY UNCLASPS. 



"XTrHEN May unclasps her dainty buds 

Laced all too strait for Summer's show; 
When colors freshen in the woods, 
And sweeter still the roses blow; 



When, with the vine, the Heart unfolds 
Its tendrils but to clasp and climb, 

And what the happy season holds 
Moves only toward a fuller time; 

What praise have we to smile and sing. 
And keep the s^^irit fair and sweet, 

Unknowing yet the strength and sting 
Of long Regret and slow Defeat? 

But when the frosts begin to fall. 

And flowers have perished, and the leaves 

Have lost their summer sheen, and all 
The fields are gathered into sheaves ; 



20 WHEX MAY UNCLASPS. 

When we must tread the downward slope 
That leads away from Song and Spring, 

That leads away from Youth and Hope, 
Then is it, O how blest a thing, 

If, down the steep that Age has set, 
We go with unreluctant feet, 

And Life be more than vain regret. 
And Love still keep the spirit sweet. 



SONG OF THE WIND. 21 



SONG OF THE WIND. 

T AM lord of the realms of the air ; 

Many a palace of cloud I own ; 
Gold and purple and azure, there, 
Are round about my throne. 

Shrill are the whistling pipes I blow; 

Rain is the pattering of my feet ; 
Wrapped in a fleecy robe of snow, 

I glide o'er ice- and sleet. 

Cradled within the floweret's cup. 
Sipping the odorous drops I lie. 

While, to the swaying down and up, 
The moments swiftly fly. 

Here, on the streamlet's breast, I rock 
The lazy lilies and flags asleep; 

There, I dash with a thunder-shock 
Across the billowy deep. 



22 SONG OF THE WIND. 

May IS out; I open the buds, 

And I snow the sward, with blossoms, white 
'Tis November; I strew the woods 

With Autumn's leafy blight. 

Now the darkening fog I drift, 

Blowing the blindness whither I list; 

Now, from the upland slope, I lift 
The trailing skirts of mist. 

Now I scatter the welcome rain, 

Giving the cloudy cisterns out ; 
Now, athirst, I shrivel the plain 

And drink the water-spout. 

Now I ' wander among the leaves, 

Far in the gloom of the woods ; and now 

Fill the sails of the ship that cleaves 
The sea with arrowy prow. 

Hush ! the gossamer safely swings, 
Though it is beaded thick with dew; 

Hark ! I snap the sinewy strings 
Of cord and cable in two. 



SONG OF THE WIND. 23 

From the cliff, by the mountain -glen, 
Over I topple the rocks that frown ; 

Well may the valleys tremble, when 
The Avalanche comes down. 

On the Desert I whirl the sand 

Round and round to a merry tune ; 

I catch the Caravan in my hand, 
And breathe the hot Simoon. 

Look, I flutter each garden -shoot, 
Daintily kissing the white and red ; 

Look, the forest is out by the root, 
For the Hurricane hath sped. 

"Wild on the Polar Main I rave, 
Crunching the jagged crags of ice ; 

Softly I ripple the seas that lave 
The Tropic Isles of Spice. 

When the branch of the pine I shake, 
Mournfully Ariel doth complain ; 

When I rush by the reedy brake. 
Pan plays his pipes again. 



24 SONG OF THE WIND. 

Close by the lattice I whisper low, 
Where the happy lovers are met; 

Bound the howling gables I go, 
When the night is dark and wet. 

Thus I travel over the world. 

Now in the blue, and now on the green; 
The oak is crashed, and the cloud is curled, 

But I am all unseen. 



METAMORPHOSIS. 25 



METAMORPHOSIS. 



T WOULD be the slipper put 
-*- Upon some one's dainty foot. 



I would be the impfisoning glove. 
On the hand of her I love. 

I would be the zone that's placed 
Round about a slender waist. 

For the love I bear to one, 
I'd be shoe or glove or zone. 

For the pretty magic in it, 
I 'd be each or all a minute. 

But I scarce would dare to be 
The locket hid wlicre none may see, 



26 METAMORPHOSIS. 

Lest I fondly might prefer 
Always to be heavened there; 

And it should amount to this,- 
Endless metamorphosis. 



THE WED DIN a -DAY. 27 



THE WEDDING-DAY. 

"TTTITH music, garlands, wine, and song. 

With mirth and dance and festal throng, 
With all that 's sweet and fair and gay, 
We celebrate the wedding-day. 

With flowers we wreathe the shining head, 
We scatter flowers for the tread 
Of her whose presence lends a grace 
To all the movement of the place. 

We shower hope and benison 
And wish and kindly thought upon 
Herself, the occasion, all that stands 
Related to her. We clasp hands 

Of dearest greeting ; we touch lips 
For long adieus. The tear-drop slips 
From eyes o'erjoyed; and fond regret 
Mingles and makes the season sweet. 



28 THE WEDDING-DAY. 

On golden hinges, to the Bride 
The Future swings its portals wide. 
Soft, roseate clouds are in the sky ; 
The Past in blissful dreams sweeps by 

To sound of Love, to whispered Vow, 
To hearts that have discovered how 
To pulse together, and to flood 
Themselves with swifter, happier blood. 

The Present opens up a gleam 
Of days whose coming glories seem 
The brighter as she nears them. Lo! 
What else but Love could move her so? 

She quits her Home; she quits the place 
Of old Affection for the face 
Of new-born, passionate Love, for one 
Whom she will follow on and on, 

To the world's end. O trusting Heart 
Of Woman, by what magic art 
Can Love so sway thee, and make bold 
To venture all the tried and old 



THE WEDDING-DAY. 29 

For somewhat new, that may not bear 
Familiar use and constant wear; 
For somewhat that perchance may break 
Whatever promise Hope could make 

Of Joy and Peace. Yet better this 

Than live alone, and wholly miss 

The dear illusion that can fling 

Its brightness from the Dawn and Spring, 

To Dusk and Autumn, and can shed 

On sunset- cloud, the gold and red 

That gilded all the happy morn, 

When Youth and Hope and Love were born. 
3* 



30 ENDURANCE. 



ENDURANCE. 



"TTTOULDST thou enjoy, know all the rare and sweet, 

Life's wonder and its glory, how complete 
The harmony may be of shaken air, 
AYhat marvellous birth comes into being where. 
Art paints or carves or builds ? Wouldst thou discern 
What lies beneath the surface, nor appears 
To transient glances ? Wouldst thou read and learn 
The riddle and the mystery of the Years 
And thrill at Beauty's slightest touch and breath ? 
Then pain and sorrow past relief of tears. 
Foresight of wreck, acquaintanceship with Death, 
Must also be thy heritage and dower. 
Some loss attends on every several gain, 
And power to suffer most attends the power 
To feel the subtlest rapture. Close doth pain 
Follow on pleasure, shadow at once and foil 
To light and life. If thou wouldst taste of rest, 
Measuring its depth and sweetness, and how blest 
Its full release, then struggle first and toil 
Till weariness prepare thee for repose. 



ENDURANCE. 31 

Not happiest of the sons of Earth are those 
Whose works awake in us the sudden thrill, 
Whose strength outmatches Death, whose iron will 
No shape of force or wrong can sway or break. 
Sickness and want, the dungeon and the stake, 
Anguish of heart, Earth stript of all disguise. 
Have laid Life's secret bare before their eyes. 
And pain endured hath made them strong and wise. 
Failure and coldness, base neglect and scorn 
Prepared for them the Triumph that hath come 
From men afar and Ages slowly born. 
The shout of praise, the cymbals and the drum 
Greet monarchs while they live. The worthiest men 
Are laurelled in their ashes. Not till then 
Is the world ripe or wise enough to know 
The worth it scorned, or met with many a blow ; 
The mockery of robe and thorny crown. 
And burden of the Cross. The Best come down 
With halo of the Martyr round their brow. 
Wouldst thou be like them ? Answer whether thou 
Hast strength to bear all pain as well as bliss. 
To endure the laugh, the scowl, the sneer, the hiss, 
And meet betrayal masked by friendship's kiss. 



WORDS BY THE WAY. 



WORDS BY THE WAY. 

nnHE little that we clearly know but makes us feel 

-^ the more 

Our weakness, want, and ignorance. We stand upon 

the shore, 
And gaze upon the boundless sea, and hear the 

breakers roar. 

Girt all about by Mystery, we view the vast profound ; 
Above are heights ; below are depths ; within us and 

around 
Are awful gulfs whose sunless gloom no lead and line 

may sound. 

What slowly gathers force and grows to beauty, grace, 

and power, 
Must slowly waste and fall away, or perish in an hour ; 
Destruction waits alike the end of tree and leaf and 

flower. 



WORDS BY THE WAY. 33 

Uprooted is the forest's strength by fierce tornado 

caught, 
Too swift a breath of nursing air hath sudden ruin 

brought ; 
A moment's violence undoes what countless years have 

wrought. 

Disease and Pain lay Beauty waste, and sap the secret 

source 
Whence sturdy Might derives his strength and fresh 

supplies of force ; 
And Age to second Childhood leads, in Nature's 

circling course. 

What subtle pulses stir the breath, what troubled joy 

the breast! 
Dim intimations, longings vague, brave hopes, and 

strange unrest 
Keep ebb and flow, and must be felt, but may not be 

exprest. 

For far within is that which lies beyond Expression's 
reach, 



34 WORDS BY THE WAY. 

Which sculptor, painter only hint, and poet fails to teach, 
Though dowered with deepest - piercing glance and 
largest gift of speech. 

In Life's hot fever, fret, and toil, its pressure and its 

strain. 
The sources of our sweetest joys become the founts of 

pain. 
And thick and fast fall Sorrow's tears like drops of 

Summer rain. 

From fairest buds of Youth and Hope, Time gathers 

bitter fruit; 
Across the darkness of our sky what meteor-passions 

shoot ! 
And in the vastness of the Soul what discontent strikes 

root ! 

Not in the realms of Peace and Health Man's nature 

all is shown ; 
The very grandeur of the wrecks with which his path 

is strewn. 
The w^ay-side ruin, ashes, dust, but make his greatness 

known. 



WOEDS BY THE WAY. 35 

No state may hold him ; ever on and upward he must 

press, 
Though aspiration bring him sense of loss and weariness ; 
He seeks the Infinite, nor may content himself with less. 

By every longing of the soul, by glances deep and high, 
By questionings that pass beyond the farthest stretch of 

sky, 

By all the cravings Earth creates yet fails to satisfy, 

This Life shall not be all of Life. It cannot, cannot be 
That such a transient glimpse of God is all that we 

shall see ; 
Eternity shall draw the veil, at last, for you and me. 

Else would the worthiest suffer most of sorrow and defeat. 
The largest hope would only lead to failure most com- 
plete. 
And Love were but a mockery, and Faith a piteous 
cheat. 

Better it were, if this were all, with unastonished ej^es 
To search for food, and eat, and sleep, nor think, nor 

feel surprise 
At all the wondrous legend w^'it on earth and in the skies. 



36 WORDS BY THE WAY. 

Let Patience have her perfect work. Why fret against 

the bars 
That close us round, till life is naught but weariness 

and scars ; 
The prison of the soul e'en now is overarched by stars. 

Blindness would follow sudden gaze on what is over- 
bright ; * 

Earth's clouds and shadows best befit our feebleness of 
sight ; 

With stronger vision there shall fall a fuller, clearer 
light. 

Let what is given thee suffice, nor idly crave for more ; 
A richer gift shall follow use of what was given 

before ; 
The Future hath its grand reserves and largesses in 

store. 

Repress desire ; nor haste to call the world a paltry 

thing : 
To gratify thine instant wish and wild imagining 
Would bankrupt all the varied wealth that endless 

years shall bring. 



WOBBS BY THE WAY. 37 

Use well the portion that is thine, nor care for large or 
small, 

Then shalt thou learn this olden truth, whatever may- 
befall, 

How growth is more than great estate, and half is more 
than all. 

Life is a process ; forth and on we ever press and tend. 
With tranquil flow or eddying whirl where currents 

meet and blend ; 
To-day we use as helpful means what yesterday was 

end. 

Life is a movement by a path whose goal before us flies ; 
We climb the mountain, and around a larger landscape 

lies, 
And in the boundless blue above new constellations rise. 

What though the motion weary us and shake our feeble 

breath. 
We rest as pilgrims by the way, and hear a voice which 

saith 
That tarrying long were risk and pain, and fixed abode 

were death. 
4 



88 WORDS BY THE WAY. 

If darkness fall upon our path, we need not halt nor 

grope ; 
Surmounting what withstood our step, we rise to larger 

scope ; 
The very things withheld become the ground of search 

and hope. 

'T is not in starting-point, nor goal, nor trackless sand 

between, 
But in the journey's Discipline, that such an End is seen 
As makes the desert glad with palms, and fringes it 

with green. 

Though hot Simoon with stifling blast upon our head 

has burst. 
To wells of water we shall come, and cool our parching 

thirst, 
And rest beneath the shade of trees that hidden springs 

have nursed. 

By gift and generous sacrifice let us enrich the Soul ; 
Thus Selfishness shall die away, or suffer such control 
That Love shall find, in what remains, more than the 
hoarded whole. 



WORDS BY THE WAY. 39 

We wait a moment at our work ; Life passes, and is gone. 
Let Duty be our strength and guide till Death shall 

lead us on, 
Then o'er the dusk of Earth and Time eternal Light 

shall dawn. 

« 
Then shall we read the lesson plain which present 

Mysteries shroud ; 
The ministry of toil and pain, of darkness and of cloud, 
The gain that comes of earthly loss, the strength of 

spirit bowed^ 

No crossed affections, unwise wills, shall trouble then 

our peace ; 
All thwart of purpose, blight of hope, all sorrow, then 

shall cease, 
When Time has wrought his Discipline, and Death has 

brought release. 



40 RECURREXCE. 



EECURRENCE. 

fTlHE seasons touch us. Though they are but brief, 

We bud and blossom, then we shed the leaf. 
Having served its office, Summer's fairest show 
Drops down to enrich the soil from which we grow. 
Thus do we spread and flourish all the more 
Because of timely losses. Let the frost 
Make bare the branch, its life-sap is not lost, 
But draws from hidden roots a richer store 
Where leaves have fallen. From the earthy mould. 
In which the sunken rootlets fix their hold. 
Each twig draws greenness, and the dying gives 
Ministrant forces out to that which lives ; 
And so it dies not wholly, but returns 
To life and youth by service. Thus all goes 
Around the circle ; and the dead leaf burns 
Next season in the blossom, and it throws 
The strength of Death into the living germ, 
And rounds the seed. Where shall the definite term 



RECURRENCE. 41 

That limits Life be drawn ; what line shall fix 

Where Life and Death do blend and intermix ? 

The kindliest soil from which the seedlet draws 

A nascent life is made of death and wreck ; 

Rocks worn to dust, and blown by the shifting flaws 

Of all the winds ; brown leaves that once did deck 

The greenest Summers ; crumbling trunks that stood 

How long in state, before there came the hour 

That broke their strength, and shook the astonished 

wood 
With the loud fall : such wreck of life hath power 
To hold the living, and to form the nest 
Wherein a germinant life may sweetly rest 
And shape itself to beauty. 

In the dust 
Of the far Centuries, in historic mould. 
In mound and ruin of the dead and old. 
In myth and fable blown by the veering gust 
Hither and thither, we strike root and grow. 
And bring again the wreck that sleeps below 
To light and comeliness. The soil doth stir 
With life and sunshine ; and the hours confer 
Youth on the Ages. Day goes bravely out, 

4* 



42 RECURRENCE. 

And dusk is followed by the dewy morn ; 
Somewhat is always being newly born ; 
An endless childhood lurks and plays about 
The shifting wonder. On the olden bough 
Young branches push, and dainty buds even now 
Do swell and pout. The blossom of to-day 
Is knit to the rock a thousand years away, 
By the deep roots. The tale of life is told 
As if some Eastern parchment were unrolled 
To countless generations ; and to each 
It opens with the Once-upon-a-Time 
Of the old Story. After-years may reach 
A soberer knowledge ; but we never climb 
Out of the realm of wonder, and the reach 
Of grand surprises. Let us therefore be 
Unenvious of the Constant, which we see 
Writ only in the Law that governs Change, 
And fixes paths wherein may play and range 
All forms and forces. 

AVhat though Time do bring 
A little dust, a little sad regretting ; 
Crown 'him with violets of the early Spring, 
Crown him with leaves rich with the Autumnal setting 



RECURRENCE. 43 

Of the ripe Year ; shower him with April-bloom 
And sweets of May ; crush him with Summer roses ; 
Drowse him with poppy and the faint perfume 
Blown from the honeyed flowers that he discloses ; 
Stain him all purple with the dye of grapes ; 
Pelt him with mellow apples ; let him know 
The happy juice that from \h.Q vat escapes ; 
Whiten his beard with rime and drifted snow ; 
Load him with diamonds cut by wintry frost ; — 
Then let him sleep, in some wood-hollow lost, 
Till the sun rouses him, and he awakes 
To hang the early tassel on the larch 
And fringe the hedge-rows and the shrubby brakes, 
What time the trumpet-blast of windy March 
Blows loud for all the sleepers underground. 
And seed and bulb awake to the echoing sound. 



44 BO AT- SON 0. 



BOAT-SONG. 

T71L0AT, float, my little Boat, 

The waves are swiftly flowing; 
They bear me onward, O so fast, 

'Tis folly to be rowing; 

'Tis madness to be rowing. 

Furl, furl your wings, my Sails, 
In this soft Summer weather; 

I fly too fleetly when the w^inds 
And waves move on together; 
When they conspire together. 

Hold, hold, my Anchor sure; 

I would enjoy one minute 
That blooming bank of flowers, and rest 

Upon the haven in it; 

Rest on the calmness in it. 



BOAT-SONG. 4.'3 

No, no, alas ! no pause : 

The winds and waves defy me; 

My Anchor drags, and I drift on, 
And the steadfast shore slips by me ; 
The envious shore slips by me. 



4() LET ME DOUBT. 



LET ME DOUBT. 



T ET me doubt the shining Sun, 
"^ Because the night has come ; 
Let me doubt the voice of Spring, 
When Winter lieth dumb. 



Let me doubt the solid Earth, 
Because of throbs and shocks ; 

Let me doubt the flowing Sea, 
When glassed among the rocks. 

Let me doubt the depths of Blue, 
Because a cloud is there; 

Let me doubt, when silence falls, 
The many-sounding Air. 

Let me doubt the heavenly light. 
Air, and earth, and sky, and sea; 

Only let me never doubt. 
My Love, my Life, of thee. 



MY CALENDARS. 47 



MY CALENDARS. 

TT O W the moments slip away ! 

-*— ^ Now 't is dusk, and now 't is day. 

Now I know that it is Spring, 

By the way the birds do sing ; 

All the air being sweetly filled 

As the happy couples build. 

Now I know 't is June to me, 

By the drowsy hum of bee : 

Now that Autumn doth prevail, 

By the piping of the quail. 

And the snow-bird — silent thing! 

Little cause hath he to sing — 

Flits about my door, and shows 

Winter here with frosts and snows : 

Shows that Winter now has come, 

Striking all this music dumb, 

That his sullen roar may be 

Requiem and minstrelsy 



48 MY CALENDARS. 

For the Seasons that are fled, 
For the Year that now lies dead. 

How the moments slip away! 
Now 't is dusk, and now 't is day. 
By the buds that 'gin to swell, 
Spring is here, I know full well. 
But the Year is scarce begun, 
Ere he shakes the blossoms down: 
And the quickly ripening fruit 
Tells how the Summer's heat doth shoot 
Through the branches, and that soon 
It will be no longer June. 
Now the crimson of the leaf 
Brings to mind how very brief 
Summer tarried, and that now 
Autumn comes to strip the bough. 
Look, the frosts begin to fall; 
Soon the snow will cover all : 
Through the branches wild and bare, 
Wintry winds y^\\\ whistle clear: 
Wintry winds now whistle loud 
O'er the dead Year in his shroud. 



MY CALENDARS. 49 

How the moments slip away ! 
Now 't is dusk, and now 't is day. 
If, in turn, I make the trial 
Of a dainty-fashioned dial, 
So arranged, of bloom, that I 
Tell the changing months thereby, 
Marking out the flight of hours 
•By the winged life of flowers, 
Time, I find, hath no more stay, 
And can fly as swift as they. 
Scarce the violet hath blown, 
Ere the Spring is overflown; 
Scarce the rose hath blushed in pride. 
Ere the Summer steps aside ; 
Scarce the poppy shakes his head, 
Till the Autumn, too, hath fled ; 
And the absence of all these, 
Drowsy -poppy, rose, heart's-ease. 
Tells me Winter comes to show 
How to lay all beauty low. 

How the moments slip away! 

Now 't is dusk, and now 't is day. 
5 D 



50 MY CALENDARS. 

If I try the World Within, 
Flight of Time shall still be seen. 
By the stir of gentle thoughts, 
Growth of sweet forget-me-nots, 
I can tell that Spring is here, 
Pretty firstling of the Year: 
By the fiery glow of Love, 
Now 't is Summer reigns above. 
But the words are scarcely said 
Till I enter Autumn's shade, 
Softened light and purple mist. 
Gold and blue and amethyst; 
Season when the too-full heart 
Feels how soon it must depart: 
While it counts the sweetness o'er 
Of the Seasons gone before, 
Lo! 'tis Winter; Life hath fled, 
Hope, Love, Memory, all are dead. 



THE IDEAL, 61 



THE IDEAL. 

To Mary F. Howell. ' 

TTTE must create the Beauty that we see ; 

* ' What most we seek for is the thing we lose ; 
The cloud and landscape take, at last, the hues 
Of light and shade within us. That doth flee' 
And pass our grasp, which most the soul pursues. 
But yet capricious Nature is so kind, 
That where Ave least expected, there we find 
Treasure the richest. Bliss comes all unsought 
That would not be o'ertaken, nor be caught 
By trap or stratagem. Pursuit is more 
Than the possession, if we therein rest. 
For, having gained the Good, if then the Best 
Be not more prized, 't is worse than 't was before 
We reached the Good. Our gain is but a loss. 
The gold encumbers us and turns to dross. 
Hiding its brightness. But if once the grace 
*0f the Ideal stir us to the chase, 



52 THE IDEAL. 

And its transcendent glory shine above 
Our little pathway, even then doth Love 
Make sacred every footstep of the way 
That leads us ever onward, and we may 
Find joy and comfort, such as are not known 
To those whose sunshine only ripens hay, 
And whom the Real hardens into stone. 



TO THE BEE. 53 



TO THE BEE. 

r\ KEEN hunter for tops of clover, 

Tumbling, in search of sweets, over and over, 
"Wandering away from your home so far, 
By what compass or guiding star 
Track you the pathless air, and fly 
Straight for the hive, through the chartless sky ? 
Tell me, I pray thee, O cunning bee, 
Where have you studied the Rule of Three? 
Taught in v/hat school, have you won the prize 
For aptness to count and geometrize? 
How have you learned, with such precision, 
Method and skill of mathematician, 
Knowledge of hexagons, planes, and edges, 
Angles, and pyramids, and wedges? 
Show me the plummet and .the square, 
Trowel and hammer you hide somewhere, 
And tell me how you became so skilled 

To plan and to measure, and to build? 
6* 



54 TO THE BEE. 

Prudent and sage Economist, 
Shrewd and toiling Capitalist, 
Laying up store in the Summer hours, 
Owning shares in the banks of flowers. 
And hiving the golden dividends 
For the time when honeyed profit ends; 
How have you come to he so wise. 
And to see so far with such small eyes ? 
Keep you the book-shelves in your head, 
Or where are the books that you have read? 
Show me your copy of Adam Smith, 
And lend me the glass to read it with ; 
All about labor and banks and money. 
Waxen thighs and flowers and honey. 
Show me your treatise on government, 
Justice Blackstone or Chancellor Kent ; 
Show me your law-books, one by one, 
Your learned Coke-upon-Littleton, 
Codes and Statutes, Decrees of Courts, 
Constitutions and Legal Reports : 
For most of all do. I wish to know 
How your officers come and go ; 
How you council and legislate. 
In shaping the grave affiiirs of State. 



TO THE BEE. 55 

The Poets tell me, O cunning bee, 
Your Commonwealth is a Monarchy, 
A type, an example, a working-plan, 
A niodel of government for Man. 
But place you ever an idle drone 
Or a fighting hero upon the throne? 
Is not the Monarch on whom you wait 
The parent of Colony and State? 
Are your placemen a plundering tribe? 
Clutch your judges after a bribe? 
Hum the louder, vvdthin your halls. 
Busy labors or wordy brawls? 
The drones, lie they not stiff and dead,- 
Ere the Autumnal days have fled? 
This, and much else, I wish to know ; 
And then the fanciful Poet may show 
The fitness of type and plan, if he can. 
And how to apply this model to Man. 



56 MY SAINT. 



MY SAINT. 

"O fairer form, no sv/eeter face 
Hath poet dreamed or limner painted ; 
No heavenlier shape of life and grace 
Hath Love portrayed or Worship sainted. 

O she is fair, surpassing fair; 
The very light that falls upon her 
Makes golden halo round her hair, 
And smiles and glows to do her honor. 

The sweetest breaths in all the sky 

Quit budding bough and opening blossom, 

To syllable her softest sigh, 

And rest in rapture on her bosom. 

But fairer than this outward show. 
The soul of Love that dAvells within her : 
Shine golden Light, Winds whisper low, 
And tell me, tell me how to win her. 



AJiCADT, 57 



AECADY. 

T7!R0M the busy, crowded street, 

And the dust and glare and heat 
Of the city, let me fly 
To the embrace of Earth and Sky. 
From the imprisonment of walls, 
And the bondage that enthralls 
Sense and soul to tasteless things, 
I, to-day, would haste with wings. 
Trees and flowers shall be my books, 
I would talk with babbling brooks ; 
Where the leafy shadows dance 
I would lap me in romance ; 
Quitting all that wearies me. 
The woods shall be my Arcady. 

Many a branch shall thatch me in 
With its coverture of green, 
And the mellow light shall spread 
Through the arches overhead, - 



58 AMCADT. 

Wliicli tlie growing verdure weaves 
Of interlacing limbs and leaves. 
There, beneath the swaying bough, 
Will I cool my burning brow, 
While the whispering breeze shall tell 
Tales of sky and hill and dell ; 
How it caught the freshness where 
Clouds, repose in depths of air ; 
How it kissed the honeyed lip 
Whence the bees their nectar sip; 
How it played the leaves among, 
While the flowery censers swung. 
Scattering thus from banks of bloom 
The quintessence of perfume. 

Columbine with clustering stalks, 
Bell-flower nodding o'er the rocks, 
Cowslip, daisy, violet; 
Blue and purple, gold and jet, 
Colors that no alchemy, 
With its curious art, could dye; 
Shapes that never chisel could 
Cut in stone or carve in wood; 
These shall fill my gazing sight 
With insatiate delight. 



ABCADY. 59 

Birds shall flit on shining wing 
Near me, and alight to sing. 
There from out the throstle's throat 
I shall hear a various note, 
And the cooing dove shall be 
Musical monotony. 
There the passing bee shall hum, 
There the pheasant beat his drum ; 
Nature's orchestra shall there 
Stir the many-sounding air 
With a harmony as sweet 
As the entranced ear can greet. 
Not when voice and instrument 
Are in swelling chorus blent, 
And the heaving bellows blow 
Sounds from organ soil and low, 
Shall there such a charm beguile 
Me as in the leafy aisle 
When the voice of music floods 
The cathedral of the woods. 

Every opening of the green 
Shall disclose a different scene 
In the landscape that around 
Circles me with charmed ground. 



60 ARC ADV. 

Never shall the canvas glow 

With so exquisite a show, 

Tints and groups that put to blush 

All the skill of painter's brush : 

Here, a charm that Claude Lorraine 

Sought to reach, but sought in vain; 

There, a savage wild that throws a 

Shadow on Salvator Rosa, 

All the variable grace, 

Life and soul of nature's face, 

Change of thought and change of mood 

Shall in nature's self be viewed. 

Sky and stream and rock and tree. 

These shall be my gallery. 

Wherein shall be keenlier felt 

What, by turns, can fire and melt, 

Warmth and throb of Nature's heart, 

Than in the galleries of Art. 

Neither shall the pages writ 
By the poet's subtle wit 
Give me picturesque ideal 
That may stand beside the real. 
Can words paint the shapeless shadows 
Slowly sailing o'er the meadows ? 



ARGADY. O'l 

Can they tell the scent of clover, 

With its honey brimming over ? 

Leaf and pebble, flower and shell 

Show what letters cannot spell. 

All that fields and wild-woods think 

May not be expressed in ink ; 

For there is a hidden reach. 

Depth and force of meaning, which 

Vainly poet strives to catch ; 

Nature is his over-match. 

Therefore in the cool recesses 

Of the woods, will I make guesses 

At the bliss of the First Garden, 

At the Forest-joys of Arden, 

That shall nigher reach the mark 

Than my thoughts in chamber dark, 

While with rhythmic flow of verses, 

Milton Paradise rehearses, 

Or I read the Seven Ages 

Sketched on Shakespeare's matchless pages. 

That which scientific skill. 
To understand, forsooth, must kill, 
And painfully anatomize, 
And view with microscopic eyes, 

G 



62 ABCADY. 

I find before me as a '^^^lole, 
A loving presence and a Soul. 
Books are catalogues of part^, 
Heads and faces, hands and hearts; 
But Nature shows the integration 
Of each with all by nice relation. 
Thus the woods shall reinforce 
Wit of books, scholastic course, 
And shall show me, to the full, 
What I learn, by hints, at school. 
There the floweret's tender shoot 
Loves to nestle at the foot 
Of the giant growth whose form 
Shelters it from sun and storm. 
There the vine, with airy grace, 
Sends forth tendrils to embrace 
Limbs and topmost boughs that bear 
All the swelling clusters where 
They may feel the warmth, and show 
Lurking wine ^n the purple glow. 
Thus to see the fragile flower, 
Transient beauty of an hour, 
Bloom beneath the friendly strength 
That outlasts the wasting length 



ABCADY, 63 

Of the long-drawn centuries, 

In the sturdy life of trees; 

Thus to see the slender vine 

Climb by tendrils which entwine 

Round about a rugged prop 

That has force to bear it up ; 

Thus to see the great and small, 

Persistent and ephemeral, 

Growing, blooming side by side, 

Closely, helpfully allied, 

Is a view of boughs and buds," 

That can make the ancient woods 

Academic grove to me. 

Full of sweet philosophy. 

There the life, -which, rooted fast 

In the stronghold of the Past, 

Can withstand the stormiest shocks 

From its fortress in the rocks. 

Only serves, with surer force. 

Bud and leafy bloom to nurse, 

And to cradle in the winds 

What the hopeful Present finds. 

In forming seed and hardening wood, 

Of growth perennially renewed. 



64 A EC ADV. 

So shall it be clearly stated 

How the Seasons are related, 

How, by an organic tether, 

Old and young are bound together ; 

Buds that ripen into fruits, 

Being fed by deeply-sunken roots, 

And borne aloft to feel the sun 

By trunks with mossy age o'ergrown. 

And that I, amid the Sprhig 
Of life and joyous blossoming. 
Amid the leafy pride and pomp 
"With which the Summer doth encamp 
On hill and plain, may still remember 
How the year hath its bleak December; 
How, answering to this warmth and breatli, 
There comes the cold repose of death, 
The woods will not be wholly mute ; 
And hence the rustling, underfoot. 
Of the sere leaves, shall call my thought 
To that which else had been forgot. 
Cypress shade and branch of yew 
Shall suggest the mortal, too 
Thus, a pensive thought, and holy, 
Shall add the charm of melancholy; 



ARCADY. 65 

Darker shadows mingling in 
With the light and cheerful green. 
The leaf that tells of last year's glory 
Shall be my memento mori. 

I will rest, an hour, and dream 
On the banks whereby a stream 
Moves in tranquil state along, 
To its murmuring undersong. 
Pictured in the waveless flow, 
Lights and shades shall come and go, 
Trees and flowers whose rootlets drink 
By sloping marge or shelving brink ; 
Vine-clad rock whose heavy brow 
Frowns upon the flood below; 
All the verdure of the hills, 
And the molten glow that fills 
Valley stretching far away 
In the warm and golden ray; 
All that 's bright and soft and fair 
Shall be sweetly imaged there. 
In the heaven of blue that lies 
Mirrored far beneath mine eyes. 
What, awake, I failed to learn, 
Dreaming thus, I shall discern ; 



66 ARCADY. 

How that Nature could not pass, 
And regard not, in the glass, 
Clear reflections that shall show 
Beauty what it fain must know. 
There shall fancy also see. 
In the pictured cloud and tree, 
Hint, from Avhat is dumb and blind, 
Of the conscious world of mind. 
And beside, I learn by this 
What I otherwise might miss, 
How ail Being is a feat 
Nature somehow would repeat. 

So shall every wakened sense 
Bring me pure intelligence; 
Sights and sounds and odorous smells 
Such as meet me nowliere else : 
So shall dreams and drowsiness 
Teach me not a whit the less: 
So the weary toil and fret 
Of life, will I, awhile, forget: 
Fret and feverish life to calm, 
Nature's presence shall be balm : 
And the day shall swiftly fly, 
Sloping down the western sky. 



ARCADY. 67 

While the shadows on the grass 
Measure how the moments pass. 
Time shall mark the fleeting hours 
By the swinging bells of flowers ; 
Or the dial-plate shall be 
Blooming sward whereon the tree, 
In whose coolness I repose, 
Makes the dusky trace that grows 
And lengthens till the setting sun 
Merges all the shades in one. 
Let me go and tarry where 
Fields are green and skies are fair ; 
For the landscape, let me quit 
Blinding wall and stony street, 
And exchange the imprisoning house 
For a leafy tent of boughs: 
Let me hide myself from men, 
Printed book or stroke of pen, 
For a livelong afternoon 
In budding May or flow^ery June, 
And I will learn a lesson which 
Thought has failed to shape in speech. 
Teachers, voices, I will find 
In opening flower and breathing whid, 



68 AECADY. 

Nor know what 'tis to be alone, 
While I converse with plant and stone, 
And haunt the dreamy solitudes 
That lie within the ancient woods. 



NEVERMORE. f>9 



NEVEKMORE. 

rjlHE roses have blown, 

And the swallows have flown, 
With the Summer-winds, over the sea; 
Yet the warmth and the rain, 
Returning again. 
Shall bring them all back to me. 

But O for the things 

That fly swifter than wings, 

Or than Summer-winds over the sea; 

For the Hopes that are flown, 

For the Lost that are gone. 

Nevermore to come back to me. 



70 TEE THREE PARTINGS, 



THE THREE PARTINGS. 

TTTHEN I and Childhood parted, 

' We both were so light-hearted, 
And 't is so long ago, 
That I do scarcely know 
What time it was we parted. 

When Youth came up to leave me, 
The rogue thought to deceive me ; 
But smiles could not disguise 
The tear-drops in his eyes, 
When Youth came up to leave me. 

Manhood and I, together. 

Have stood through wind and weather, 

This many a day; and O, 

If he should choose to go, 

We both must go together. 



ALWAYS THE ROSE. 71 



ALWAYS THE EOSE. 



"VTOW I am young, and Spring is my song, 
^^ Spring with its warmth and the bud of the rose : 
When I grow older, when I grow colder, 
Then I may sing of the frosts and the snows. 



Now it is May-day, life 's in its hey-day, 
Every thing buds and blossoms and glows. 
When 't is December, shall I remember 
To tell in my song how the wintry wind blows? 

Nay, nay, even then, the songlet again 
Shall sing in old age, amidst Winter's repose. 
Of the seed and the blossom, held close in his bosom, 
Awaiting the Spring ; 't will be still of the rose. 



72 THIS WORLD IS ALL TOO FAIR. 



THIS WOELD IS ALL TOO FAIR. 



rriHIS world is all too fair and sweet, 

And Life too short, and Death too strong, 
For Love to dwell in, and complete 
The promise of his early song. 



The prelude that begins all gay, 
And sounds out many a note of glee, 
And bravely echoes far away, 
Soon murmurs in the minor key. 

And sobs and broken snatches ease 
The burden of Love's wordless grief, 
Till Death brings in the long release. 
And Silence shows the full relief. 



AUTUMNAL. 73 



AUTUMNAL. 

npHE flying Year, at last, begins to wane, 

And many a sweet has bloomed and passed away ; 
The wind blows over stubble, where the grain 
Waved in its golden state but yesterday. 
What odorous buds have dropt from twig and bough, 
What flowers have lost their play of light, and shed 
Their leafy splendor, as the months have sped 
Swiftly toward Autumn. Ah, my heart asks now, 
After the memories of its early Spring, 
When Earth was April, and the tuneful throats 
Of the first birds began to trill and sing ; 
Wh'en Life was all a May-bloom, and the notes 
Of countless couples made the forest ring. 
O then the garden was a glorious thing 
Of largest promise ; every swelling bud 
Looked to the future ; and the orchard stood 
Burdened with blossoms. But the bloom took wing 
And fled, pray whither, and for what poor reason ? 
Why not arrest the beauty of the season, 
7 



74 AUTUMNAL. 

And make the joy perpetual ? Why declme 
Toward other suns less happy, though they shine 
Longer and brighter ? 'T is a mad unrest 
That quits the Spring, when all is newly drest, 
And Youth and Love show Beauty at her best, 
And moves toward Age and Autumn. 

Look around I 
No more I linger in the fairy ground 
Of youthful wonder. Flowers have run to seed, 
And buds have ripened into homely fruit ; 
And by the alley green and garden-walk. 
Comes pushing up, the rank and poisonous weed, 
In the hot sunshine. Can the Days transmute 
What hung in fragile grace upon the stalk, 
And was a fluttering life, to rind or shell 
Enclosing kernel of no higher use 
Than to be crushed and eaten ? It is well. 
The world must starve, could buds and blossoms choose 
To stay in bloom forever. This might please 
Fantastic dreamers and the mad-cap bees, 
That feed on flowers and honey, and would wing 
An endless flight among the sweets of Spring. 
I would not stop the Seasons, even although 
To outward husk and hardness I shall grow, 



AUTUMNAL. 76 

If germinant life be in me and infuse 

A spirit of love to knit the hours together. 

All is not loss ; I gain by what I lose : 

And when the Year is done with wintry weather, 

Unnumbered buds shall open to repeat 

The half-forgotten glory ; and the feet 

Of Spring shall wake the form that sleeps and waits 

In root and seed. Then, through the open gates 

Of Youth and Beauty, Life shall come again, 

And bring heart-throbbings and the sweet surprise 

Which no one finds, or parts w^ith, all in vain, 

Though brief ^he presence, and the loss remain 

To be recalled it last, with tearful eyes. 



76 TWOQ U E UTIO y s. 



TWO QUESTIONS. 

"PI^AY, what is old? The ancient wood 

-^ Renews itself in leaf and bud; 

And in the boughs, lo, every Spring, 

The birds build there, and brood, and sing. 

Look in the gai-den ; every bed 

Is living white or blue or red. 

The violet grows as fresh and young 

As when its praises first were sung. 

The rose puts on as sweet a blush 

As when its beauty first did gush 

Into the poet's song. And so, 

The lily, too, as fair doth grow 

As when, by the astonished sun, 

Its whiteness first was shone upon. 

I asked again, pray, what is dead? 
Is it the ground on which I tread ? 
Earth, ashes, dust? Nay, life is there, 
That stirs and seeks the light and air. 



TWO QUESTIONS. 77 

A little seed is dropped therein ; 
Awhile, it hides and sleeps unseen ; 
Earth wakes it, and it shapes the mould 
To forms of beauty. Is that old, 
Powerless, and dead, which shortly shows 
Itself in violet, lily, rose ; 
Which hath the force, with sun and rain 
And heavenly dews, to cover plain, 
Wood, hill -side, garden, craggy rock, 
With bud and leaf and flowering stalk? 

What then is old, I once more said, 
And what is rightly labelled dead? 
It is the thing w^ithout a use ; 
That neither lives nor doth infuse 
Life into others ; that keeps state 
Unchanging, worthless, isolate. 
That thing, though called by any name 
Of honor, glory, hate, or shame, 
Crown, cross, book, man, or all, or each, 
Ceasing to rule, guide, comfort, teach, 
And that alone, is old and dead, 
Utterly past ; and in its stead, 
Uprises Life, and what is knit, 
By any living tic, to it. 



78 OUTSIDE THE CATHEDRAL. 



OUTSIDE THE CATHEDRAL. 

"TTT^HAT temple can compare 

With this blue dome of air, 
Which the Almighty Hand hath shaped and rounded ? 
What organ-pipes can blow 
The tones that come and go, 
When storms rush by, and thunder's trump hath 
sounded ? 

The finest human wit 

Can only miniature it, 
And hint to us, in small, the vastly greater : 

By wall and trem.bling spire, 

We climb and point up higher, 
And symbolize the work of the Creator. 

Upon the organ's note 

We rise and softly float, 
And lift our souls above the clouds and thunder : 

We gather strength to wing 

A heavenward flight, and sing; 
Or worship best, when lo«t in silent wondei-. 



A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 



A READING FEOM THE ROCKS. 

IITHAT skill shall tell the Ages of the Earth? 

What patient reckoning shall slowly mount 
Through cycle after cycle to its birth? 
What chastened dream of Science shall recount 
The wonders of its youth? The years have left 
Their flying foot-prints in the solid rock ; 
And what the abysmal force hath heaved and reft 
To peak and splintered crag by strain and shock, 
The countless days have rounded. Time hath sown 
The lichen on the baldness of the steep; 
And sun and frost and wind and rain have thrown 
Rich dust in barren crevice. Mosses creep; 
And seeds begin to strike a deeper root ; 
Tall ferns arise ; and trees make bolder shoot, 
Pushing their way toward heaven among the storms 
That stir and nurse them. 

'T is an old world, 
Where rocks are worn to dust ; and leafy forms 
Are left in lithograph ; and forests are hurled 



80 A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 

Beneath the hills; and early verdure lies 

Transformed to fossils; and where cities sleep 

Buried in lava ; and the Living, keep 

Ruins for studies. Yet new shapes arise 

Fresher and fairer out of all this wreck. 

This dust and ashes is the kindly soil 

Whence nobler forms uplift themselves and deck 

The Earth more sweetly. Age is but the foil 

To budding youth. By the volcano's base, 

And where the molten stream made beds of fire, 

The flower, at last, begins to show its face ; 

And builders slowly build their dwellings nigher, 

Until a city stands above the place 

Where one lies buried. Round the broken shaft, 

Carved with such art that all the Graces laughed 

In triumph when the miracle was done. 

Beneath unaltered sky and changeless sun, 

The tendril twines and climbs ; the ivy drapes 

With green the faded show of crumbling wall ; 

Thick tufts of grass and vines with purpling grapes 

Run into wild luxuriance where the fall 

Of temple and tower are dateless and complete : 

The waste becomes a wilderness of sweet ; 

And trees have grained the centuries into wood, 



A HEADING FJIOM THE liOCK.^. 81 

Fixing their trunks in ruins that have stood 

Ruined for ages. 

Death is but the dumb 

Servant of Life. Let the years go and come. 

Each day draws freshness from the dewy dawn ; 

Each year takes tribute of a wealthier Past, 

And gives a Larger promise. What hath gone 

Leaves sign or seed or influence that shall last 

Forever in its office. Lo, each hour 

Renews life, youth, and beauty. From the dusk 

And mould that minister about the seed, 

Look how the stem comes forth ; and how the flower 

Bursts into fulness from the sheathing husk. 

And breaks the light to colors which do feed 

The poet's sight and fancy. 

What success 

At a perpetual freshness Nature hath 

Amid the old and constant, when the path 

Of beaten order, childhood's footsteps press ; 

And on the ancient marvel, childhood's eyes 

Look with the gladness of a first surprise. 

And for the growing wisdom of the Man, 

She hath reserves and largesses in store. 

That are exhaustless. Who shall fix or scan 

P 



82 A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 

Limit and scope of things, and find no more 
Ab©ve him and beyond? Each hidden law, 
Discovered by long study to the sight, 
Thrills hoary Sage with all the dear delight 
Of childhood; and the freshness that he saw 
In the far days, once more about him, fills 
Earth and the heavens ; and the sense of power, 
Being, and manhood, makes the rapturous hour 
One with his earliest moments, when the hills 
Caught the first rays of dawning light, and threw 
Their wondrous shadows o'er his childish view. 
Science walks forth among the nebulous mist 
Of the world's morn, and sees the ring and sphere 
Part from the central sun. Geologist 
Succeeds Astronomer, and doth appear 
When the swift globe in empty space is swung, 
Whirling serene, and moving on among 
It's fellow planets. He hath wit and skill 
To read the ancient scriptures of the rocks ; 
And mark out Ages by the trace of shocks 
In the Earth's crust. Ascending back at will 
To times that antedate the birth of INIan, 
He would restore the past, and make the plan 
Of Nature clear and present. What a realm 



A BEADING FROM THE ROCKS. 83 

Of poetry and wonder he explores. 

Beneath the floods that sweep and overwhelm, 

He sees old Ocean lay the solid floors 

That now are Continents. He feels the beat 

And feverish pulse of inward fire and heat 

Throb into Mountains. In the stable state 

Ruling around so tranquilly to-day, 

He finds the vestige and the relative date 

Of earthquake, flood, tornado, and the play 

Of forces that appal us. Look again ! 

The old is fresh and vital, and the extinct 

Revives and blooms ; Life, Death, all interlinked 

And pressed together. Cliff" and chasm and glen 

Are books and libraries of ancient lore. 

Written and shelved unnumbered years before 

The eye was formed that reads them. We restore 

The olden Floras from the little print 

Made in the hill-side ; from the seams of coal. 

The crushed, charred forest rises green and whole. 

From bone that shows a mere organic hint, 

The skeleton is built and fleshed and gives 

Its form and habits, and again it lives 

Translated to the Ideal. Every place 

Is lettered with the Past. Upon the face 



84 A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 

Of solid rock, the rain-drop shows its trace; 

And ripples made by force of ancient wind, 

That swept the world with stir of living breath 

Ages ago, and blew itself to death. 

Roughen and mark the stone, and stay behind 

Motionless ever. Language fails to speak 

What Time and Might have done. The highest peak 

That shows its mass of granite to the sun. 

Has roots that only strike the further down ; 

And through bleak top and pierced and riven crown, 

The fiery floods uplift themselves and run, 

Revealing lowest depths : and ice and snow. 

About the summit, feel the liquid glow 

Of the World's Centre. And the smallest thing, 

Impression, fragment, twig, leaf, insect caught 

In the translucent amber, all are fraught 

With deep suggestion, and have power to bring 

The former ages back, and make them part 

Of the living Present and the Earth's great heart. 

The Worshipper transforms the Past and Old 
To a Religion. There he finds the source 
Of highest Teaching. Thence the stream is rolled 
That bears the nations onward in its course, 
Guiding and blessing. There the Garden lies 



A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 85 

Wherein God walked : the bowers of Paradise 

Blow round about the primal happy pair, 

And Earth and Heaven hold sweet communion there. 

Strange sounds become familiar, and the noise, 

Motion, and life of earliest times are caught. 

Dead languages grow quick with living thought, 

And speak with high Authority and a voice 

Of the world's thunder in thcDi. Books are brought 

Down from the distance, laden with the weio-ht 

Of the flown years, and priceless with the freight 

Of sacred text, where Laws rise to Commands, 

And Principles are uttered, which have strength 

To shape Man's destiny, and run the length 

And breadth of all the ages and the lands. 

A clue is found to thrid the tangled maze 

Of the earth's labyrinth : and the many ways 

Of tribe and nation underneath the sun, 

Begin to have an order and to run 

After historic method, and to tend 

Helpfully on and toward a common end. 

Back to the regions old and consecrate, 

The reverent heart makes holy pilgrimage, 

-And youth learns homage, and to bow and v>'ait 
8 



86 ^ A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 

At shrines that have their place and take their date 
In the far land and in the distant age. 

The Painter finds new breath of impulse where 
The Past gives glimpse of glories, and the spot 
Is strewn with shattered sj^lendors, and the air 
Murmurs of years that will not be forgot 
"While the wind sighs through ruins. He doth tread 
Where Might and Empire now are gone and dead, 
Save as a dim remembance, and a place 
In which to dream of many a vanished face 
And form and fashion. He beholds the grace 
With which the Olden World knew how to die. 
He sees the smile of sweetness that doth lie 
Fixed on the visage whence the life is fled. 
O happy days, long past and swiftly sped 
Down the far vista that the years have made, 
And filled with tenderest tints of light and shade. 
He walks the galleries of Art, which Time, 
The oldest master, wrought, and which are still 
Touched and retouched with traces of a skill 
Tearful and glorious. What a golden clime . 
To dream and dwell in, when the Past can bring 
Wide realms to tempt imagination's wing; 
And where the sky is rich -with the sunset- glow 



A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 87 

Of Age and People that have sunk below 

The world's horizon. Ah ! what melts the heart, 

Touching the sense and inmost soul of Art, 

Like the dim light, vague forms, and shadowy haze 

That make, a halo round the far-off days ? 

The Poet leaves the Present, and he goes 
For inspiration, where the music flows 
Vibrant and voiceful, tender and sublime, 
Down the long aisles and echoing vaults of Time. 
He hears the shout, the song, the choral hymn 
Float from the ages, through the twilight dim, 
And all the Past becomes a quickened thing 
That loves and sings and teaches him to sing. 
He leaves awhile the violet and the rose ; 
He quits the garden, though it buds and blows 
With promise of the Future, that he may 
Wander at large in olden tracts, and stray 
In the weird worlds where Beauty's self doth seem 
But inspiration, memory, and a dream. 

The Historian walks among the mighty Dead, 
Painting their portraits, as the faces shine 
Out of the dusk and gloom, in many a line 
Of marvellous finish. Hark ! he hears the tread 
Of armies that are dust. Upon the page 



88 A HEADING FROM THE E.OCKS. 

Nations appear and vanish. Men engage 

At high debate in Forum. On the fiehi 

The leader speaks before the marshalled host ; 

The serried ranks approach and clash and yield, 

And States and Empires, there, are won and lost. 

How facts are blent with fables ! Who shall find 

The thoughts that link together all mankind, 

Connecting earliest savage with the sage, 

And having power to co-relate and bind 

Man unto man, and age to coming age? 

The Antiquary nurses in his breast 
A passion for the by-gone. He doth build. 
Out of the moss and lichen, many a nest 
By tombs and ruins. Quick is he and skilled 
At old inscriptions, to decipher what 
The Avinds and rains have blurred, or is forgot, 
Being writ in a dead language. Unto him 
The oldest is the newest. He doth know, 
In coin and medal eaten by the rust 
Until the letters have grown faint and dim, 
And form and fashion are half-way toward dust, 
A current use and value that outgo 
All metals which the graver or the die 
Has lately struck or graven. There do lie 



A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 89 

Rich trophies, realms, and treasures vast, 
Within the boundless empire of the Past, 
Which he would seek and reconstruct ; and where 
He wills to rule, free from the fret and care 
That haunt the Present. 

And the Scholar, who 
Lives on the printed page, and only looks 
At the world indirectly, using books 
To find the Beautiful, the Good, the True, 
That live and dwell in Nature ; he shall see 
The years and ages pass in grand review. 
Done into symbols. All the world shall be 
Volumed and labelled. Language shall rehearse 
The mighty drama ; and the rhythmic verse 
Throb to the varied movement. Naught shall sleep 
In utter darkness. Images shall keep 
The form of what doth vanish. Pictures clear 
And fadeless make Antiquity appear 
Fair and immortal ; and the rosy blush 
That hung about the morning of the world 
Is fixed forever. Listen to the gush 
Of Life in the old centuries. Hear the rush 
Of tribes and nations, as the years are whirled 
Papidly onward. Thought has power to knit 
8^ 



90 A BEADING FROM THE ROCKS. 

The abrupt together, and thereby to give 
Order and process to the states that flit 
In swift and strange succession. /AW shall live, 
Where books do garner up and plant the seeds 
Of germinant truths that shape themselves to deeds, 
And swell to bud, and show the perfect form 
That grows and ripens in the sun and storm, 
And leaves new seed behind it, to unfold 
Fresher and fairer than what went before. 
The blossom drops, the leaflet quits its hold 
Upon the bough ; and yet the trunk that bore 
The beauty up toward heaven shall feel the flow 
Of finer life within the sunken roots. 
Blossoms and leaves fall down to die and go 
Toward richer sap : and thus the next year puts 
A fairer beauty on, and broader shade, 
Because last year, in dying, went to aid 
His swift successor forward. . 

And behold! 
When Time and Change have made the Wise man old, 
Philosopher turns Poet, and doth dream 
In a new language. All about him spread 
Are realms of wonder. Transient glimpse and gleam 
Change to the steady sunshine overhead, 



A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 91 

And to the open vision. And he stands, 
With rule and line of measure in his hands, 
Taking such measures that the simple sum 
Has force to strike imagination dumb. 
Beneath the ceaseless movements which transpire 
Around him and within; beneath the fire 
Which heaves the mountains and pours forth the flood 
Of lava on the valleys, there doth rest 
A changeless Law, an Order sweet and calm. 
Giving a tranquil current to his blood 
Amid all shocks and crises : and his breast 
Leans on the harp of nature, while the psalm 
Of love and trust uprises from his lips 
No longer mute with terror. For he dips 
Beneath the surface, piercing to the core 
And kernel of the world, and finds the germ 
And regulative life, that triumph o'er 
All change and deatli, and put a steadfast terra • 
To wreck and ruin. Thus doth he relate 
Youth unto Age, and thus subordinate 
Death unto Life, f A sweet philosophy- 
Knits what has been, to all that is to be. 
The Old and Past are mighty and do reach 
Livingly forward. . Manners, customs, laws, 



92 A READING FROM THE ROOKS. 

Great institutions, trivial forms of speech 

There find condition, and the primal cause 

Whence they have risen. Scarce a letter or word 

But shows handwriting of an ancient race 

Still known and current, and whose voice is heard 

In senate, closet, camp, and market-place, 

Busy or eloquent. And the hieroglyph 

Cut on the shaft or front of sacred wall 

Hath lessons for us in its symbols, if 

AVe read aright the olden sketch and scrawl 

When scribe emerged from painter. We derive 

From twilight ages and from dusty nooks 

The organic wisdom, laid away in books. 

Which, used, becomes still present and alive, 

Growing and blessing. Open but the door 

Of library full-freighted with the store 

And wealth of knowledge ; read the title-page 

Of the large learning ; fix the place and age 

Of chosen volumes ; you shall thereby find 

A bloom and freshness in the world of mind 

That has no fading, and that stirs and grows 

Fairly forever. 

/ Nature lives and shows 
The Past still in the Present. What was best, 



A RE AD IN FROM THE ROCKS. 93 

Strongest, and worthiest, in the epochs fled, 
Doth not lie waste and desolate and dead, 
But flourishes and comes forth newly drest 
In all the array of Life. The ages flow 
Continuous and vital. As the Seasons go 
Their little round of mutual help, and bring 
The Summer's glory from the buds of Spring, 
And Autumn's fulness out from both of these. 
That Winter may have goodly rest and ease, 
"With store of golden fruit, ere Time doth lead 
Once more the babbling brook adown the mead, 
And all toward April :/so the rounded Years 
And the full Centuries move slov/ly on. 
And open fairer buds, and show the bloom 
Of richer flowers, aixl ripen heavier ears 
For the world's harvest ; and when earth is drawn 
Awhile from blossom and the soft perfume 
Of breathing flower, behold how Time doth fill 
Unnumbered seeds that look toward Spring, and still 
Tend thither. Thus the swifter and the less 
Show forth the general movement, and express, 
In miniature, the mighty and sublime 
That crowd the endless reach of Space and Time. 
Thus, by the swift and ever-varying train 



94 A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 

Of personal changes ; by the sense of growth ; 

By memory of childhood ; and again 

By joys of parentage securing both 

Present and future ; by the hopes that start 

With morn and spring-time ; by the cares of Art 

Carrying the organic forward ; by the slow 

And steady movements which, at length, displace 

Successive generations from the face 

Of this fair planet ; by the ceaseless flow 

That bears away the nations, and doth change 

Centre and theatre of worldly state. 

Bringing old realms within the sudden range 

Of might that layeth waste and desolate, 

To build again and plant and renovate; 

And by the Life that rises doubly great 

From out this lapse, and grows the more, and blooms, 

Because its rootlets reach within the tombs 

Of buried days, and shape the ancient mould 

To a living glory: — what is Dead and Old, 

By such devices, lives again and shows 

An endless youth and sweetness. 

Now it grows 
Late in the world. The long-drawn ages now 
Are niched and scpultured among the rocks; 



A READING FROM THE ROCKS. 95 

The leafy bloom of countless years ago 

Is hid away in black and hardened blocks 

Among the coal-beds. /Crumbling tombs enfold 

A human desolation. Many a thought 

Lies buried in the sandstone. Ruins hold 

By-gone experiences, and we are brought 

Back to the vestiges which we have left, 

As riddles to decipher. And we find 

The heart, too, hath its fossils. Through the cleft 

Which Time and Pain have made, the howling wind 

Blows bleakly on us. Yet in such an earth, 

So marked and scarred with age, a Child is born : 

And with the fact and moment of his birth, 

The world, the Universe is made anew; 

It lies rebosomed in its primal morn, 

Bathed with the early freshness and the dew. 

The fields are green, the skies- are fair and blue : 

On budding boughs the birds make haste to sing, 

And life awakes amid the dawn of Spring. 

The Book of Genesis begins once more; 

And History must be written out again, 

Reshaped, with further chapters than before, 

Still incomplete, and only finished when 

The final man puts stop to the Race of men. 



96 TO TEE BLUEBIliD. 



TO THE BLUEBIKD. 

TTTHEN winds are lulled in early Spring, 

* * And parted clouds give sunshine through, 
Thou comest first, and on thy wing 
Dost bear a dash of Summer's blue. 



Thou sittest on the leafless bough 

That swells with sap and fills its buds, 

And with thy simple warblings, thou 
Preludest all the voiceful woods. 

The time of song could not begin 

With sweeter, dreamier notes than those; 

Thou bringest all its fulness in, 

As buds bring in the full-blown rose. 

And when the louder gush has come 

Of many voices, and the Year 
Has stepped tow^ard Summer, art thou dumb, 

Or is it I who fail to hear? 



TO THE BLUEBIRD. 97 

Yet silent, or unheard among 

The fuller strains the months have brought, 
There is a welcome in thy Song, 

A joy that will not be forgot. 

I wait to hear thy voice again, 

When wintry winds have ceased to blow; 
I wait until the early rain 

Dissolves the streaks of drifted snow. 

And not in vain: for soon I hear 
Thy welcome warble low and sweet: 

Of Hope thou art the symbol dear, . 
Which swift Fulfilment goes to meet. 

Sing by my window all the day, 
And let thy tremulous joy so reach 

My inmost being, that I may 

Translate thy little song to speech. 

Nor pause the while I shape to word 
The passing Song that seemeth mine; 

It only echoes what is heard ; 

Receive it from me, for 't is thine. 
9 G 



98 TO THE BLUEBIRD. 

Build on tlie naked bough thy nest; 

The bloom shall haste to hedge thee round, 
And life, within thy little breast, 

Fulfil its sweet prelusive sound. 



THE OLD MAN'S SONG. 99 



THE OLD MAN'S SONG. 

TS it the Flowers have lost their grace, 

They look so faint and wan? 
Or is it the Roses in my face 

Have drooped and gone, 

Have drooped and gone? 

Is it the Rainbow that has fled 
From out the cloud in the sky? 

Or is it Hope that seemeth dead, 
And soon must die, 
And soon must die? 

Is it the Sun has lost his fire, 
He shines so pale and cold ? 

Or am I losing my Desire, 
And growing old, 
And growing old? 



100 THE OLD MAN'S SONG. 

Is it the steadfast Eartlj that shakes 
And ripples into waves? 

Or is it my weary Step that takes 
Its way o'er graves, 
Its way o'er graves? 



Mr WINE. 101 



MY WINE. 

/^ GOOD is the blood that escapes from the grapes 
^^ Which have purpled themselves in the sun ; 
The glow of its flow fills the night with delight, 
When the dreary day is done. 

Yet the draught deeply quaffed, from the cup flieth up 

To kindle and madden the brain ; 
And the lip that will sip, may smile for awhile, 

To quiver thereafter with pain. 

But I can defy all that warms, glows, and charms 

In Burgundy or Tokay ; 
For mine is a wine, I can use as I choose. 

And soberly walk away. 

The gloom of my room soon rejoices with voices 
Through its shelved and echoing nooks ; 

I grow sane as I drain the wine olden and golden, 
From the leathern bottles of Books. 
9* 



102 BEAUTY. 



BEAUTY. 



rriELL me wherein Beauty lies, 

Laughing lips, or speaking eyes? 
Does she play at hide and seek 
Midst the roses of the cheek? 



Does she nestle softly where 
Clustering falls the wealth of hair? 
Or, like Fairy, dwells she in 
Dimple of the chiselled chin? 

Then spake Beauty, saying, "No, 
These are but mine outward show. 
Life I am, and Joy, and Love, 
Throbbing heart and pulse I move;. 

" This am I ; the informing Soul, 
Moving, quickening the whole; 
And of me, were all bereft, 
What but dusty Death were left?" 



A MEDITATION. 103 



A MEDITATIOK 

QjWIFT are our personal changes. We grow old. 

^^ Passions have spent their fierce volcanic force ; 

The fiery lava now lies hard and cold, 

That once swept onward, blasting in its course 

What lay before it. We dig down, and find 

Dust, ashes, ruin in the realm of Mind. 

There lie the fossils of dead Hopes and Fears. 

The Past becomes a study that endears 

The Present to us. We can scarce make out 

Our own antiquities. We grope about. 

As in an ancient cabinet, and gaze 

At what the changing months and years have wrought; 

At by-gone customs, vanished modes of thought, 

Forgotten habits, and become a maze, 

Puzzle, and slieer enigma to ourselves. 

Dead languages lie written on the shelves, 

Telling our story. Crumbling ruin and mound 

Mark many a spot of sadness, and the ground 

Is hillocked by the spade that digs too deep / 



104 A MEDITA TION. 

For any growth or planting. There do sleep, 
In sunken hollows, forms that once did keep 
Revel amid the freshness of the May. 
Our Life repeats the changes of the day 
And of the seasons. Time within us grows 
Vital ; and morn and evening pass away 
With new signijScance. The Present shows 
The gain and loss of all the varied Past. 
The months are quick sensations ; dawn and dew 
Rise into thoughts. The hours go hurrying fast 
And rhythmic. Naught is old or new, 
But strangely mixed and blent and fused together. 
The days sweep on, and we can scarce tell whether 
'T is Spring or Autumn. As the moment flies. 
One part of us is born, another dies. 
We claim a kinship to the buried rocks. 
Are portions of the elements, and find 
Ourselves now shaken by the earthquake-shocks 
That shook down olden cities. Now the wind 
Thrills us with breath of roses newly blown ; 
And now it sighs, and makes us faint and blind 
With mould and dust of what was overthrown 
Far ages gone. The violet doth put 
Its beauty forth, and opens its blue e3"cs 



A MEDITATION. 105 

Smiling upon us ; and the mosses shoot 

Over the tombs of many a fair Surprise 

And Love that could not tarry or keep foot 

With the swift Years. The Child is dead and gone ; 

The Boy becomes an Ancient to the Man. 

Shall we uuAvrap the mummy, or pass on, ' 

Ignoring what we have been? 

See the plan 
Of Being: growth, decadence, death; 
With others left behind, to make the ground 
Of this recurrence endless, when the breath 
In us is wholly spent. This is Life's round. 
We lose our hold upon the vital thread 
That binds ourselves together, unless the Dead 
Quicken within us, and a tie run through 
The Old, to knit and blend it with the New. 
More than a part or hint of Nature, we 
Restore the Past, predict what is to be, 
Shape out the Present, fashion the far ends 
Toward which the general movement points and tends, 
Complete the round of change, and thus become 
The integration and the living sum 
Of all the Ages. What though you and I 
Are born, then grow awhile, then fade and die : 



lOG A MEDITATION. 

Wo pass away ; our force, our work remains ; 

Our cliildreii follow us, rich by the gains 

Of all that we have done, our toils, our pains, 

Our very losses. We move on, and make 

A place for others, for whose dearer sake 

To live is sweet, and O, of Love the crown, 

It is not bitter, even to lie down 

And die. All dies not with us. ^yorthy deed, 

True thought, and generous impulse, and large aim, 

AVith which we sow the Future, as with seed, 

Live on, and hold our transient life and name 

Toward a perpetual harvest. We shall pass, 

As flowers of Spring, or as the Summer grass 

Touched by the scythe, yet each good act shall keep 

Kemembrance of us that no leaden sleep 

Of Death shall drowse. Such act shall leave behind 

A trace which fire and frost and rain and wind 

Shall all be powerless to obliterate, 

While man remains, and stars have stable state. 



LOVE BOTH BEAUTIFY THE DAY. 107 



LOVE DOTH BEAUTIFY THE DAY. 

T OVE doth beautify the Day, 
■^ Consecrates the simplest thing ; 

Never wanders far away, 
Nestling rather, folds his wing; 

Finds content and space to stay 
In the circlet of a ring. 

Love doth make the Night divine. 
Makes the darkness sweet and dear; 

Teaches every star to shine 
Doubly steadfast, doubly clear 

Whispers, clasping hand in mine, 
Words that no one else may hear. 

Days may pass and seasons glide, 
Bringing losses, bringing gains : 

Time hath bliss and woe beside, 

A ge steals on with aches and pains : 

Wliat care I for Time or Tide, 
If but Love, but Love remains? 



108 BLOOM OUT, F LOWERS. 



BLOOM OUT, FLOWERS. 

13L0C)M out, Flowers, while ye may; 
•^ Sunshine comes not every day ; 
When the cloud slips in between, 
All your beauty is not seen. 

Bloom out while the sun is high. 
Give your sweetness to the sky. 
For he soon sinks down, and then 
You must clo'se and hide again. 

Therefore up, and out in haste. 
Let no sunshine run to waste : 
In this world of cloud and night 
AVaste no moment of the light. 

Come forth, violet, come and bring 
Odors to the breath of Spring; 
Show the sky its heaven of blue 
Sweetly miniatured in you. 



BLOOM OUT, FLOWERS. 109 

Eose, come forth, and be the queen, 
Fill with light thy bower of green. 
Flush the fragrant air, and show 
How the month of June can glow. 

Bloom out, Flowers, while ye may, 
Summer stands not at a stay ; 
When the Winter slips between, 
No more is your beauty seen. 
10 



no DEATH. 



DEATH. 

"TTTITHIN the compass of how small a space, 
Has Death the skill and mastery to bring 
WJiatever filled the best and largest place, 
And had wide prospect and the strength of wing 
Still to soar upward. Emperor and king 
And conquering chieftain, who marched forth to set 
New bounds to vast dominions, and this done, 
Having made the world their map of empire, yet 
Could find it all too little for their throne : 
Where have those lords and mighty rulers gone ? 
Where is the head that grasped the afiairs of state ? 
Where the swift motions of the lip and tongue 
That charmed and swayed the halls of high debate ? 
Where now the eye that flashed its light among 
All shapes and forces, far within the deep 
Of earth and heaven, and therein clearly saw, 
Written in shifting forms, the changeless Law 
That guides the starry courses and doth keep 
Its watch and ward forever? And O where 



DEATH. Ill 

The voice that sang and shook the joyous air 

With rhythmic pulse and undulation sweet, 

Till slumbering Echo wakened to repeat, 

By every listening glen and rock and hill, 

The murmur of the music and the thrill ? 

Where are the cunning hands that knew to guide 

The pen, the brush, the chisel ; by whose stroke 

Language became a power that shall abide 

And stir the Ages ; and the canvas woke 

To living shapes and colors ; and the stone 

Threw off its rugged outline, and revealed 

The matchless forms which elsewise none had known 

Or hoped to find there prisoned and concealed ? 

Where is the Beauty that could stir the sight, 

More than the painter's art or poet's dream, 

With sudden waves and tremblings of delight ? 

The Presence that went by, as on a stream 

The swan doth float, in lines of living grace ; 

The changeful glory of the heavenly face, 

Making the season fairer than the day 

When Summer turns the sunshine into rose ; 

Where now that lustrous Beauty ? Where, I pray, 

That voice of music with its ebbs and flows ; 

Monarch, and maiden, scholar, statesman, all 



112 DEATH. 

That shone in court, camp, closet, field, and hall ; 
Where now are they? 

Beneath the sculptured stone, 
And hid within the cheerless cold and dark, 
The king, discrowned, lies courtless and alone ; 
The wise man's wit is quenched beyond a spark ; 
The tongue of Eloquence is stricken dumb. 
And the large brain all empty of device ; 
And the keen flashing of those earnest eyes 
Has suffered now a dim and last eclipse ; 
The listening crowds are gone, no more to come 
And hang upon the music of those lips. 
Dust overspreads the crimson and the gold 
That blazoned royalty in glittering state ; 
An ashen pallor sleeps in every fold 
Of the rich purple that enrobed the great. 
The heavens are hidden by a rayless night. 
To the clear vision which could read afar 
Through rifts of cloud, by faintly gleaming light, 
The wondrous lore of planet and of star. 
The cunning hands are utterly bereft 
Of touch and guidance. Pencil, chisel, pen. 
No more shall feel the grasp whose skill has left 
Traces of might, Time scarce may hope again 



DEATH. 113 

To match in all the future. On the wall 

Bloom the rich colors, while the painter lies 

In everlasting paleness. You shall call 

To the cold statue, and its ears and eyes 

Shall note your presence, sooner than the one 

•Who freed the living semblance from the stone. 

And though the page of Poesy ring out 

With a perpetual music ; and the shout 

Of Youth and Passion swell the choral hymn; 

Yet hushed forever, motionless each limb, 

AVith pulseless heart, in gloom profound, he rests 

Whose slightest v;ord throbs in unnumbered breasts. 

And Beauty lies disfigured into dust ; 

And Grace is jointless in the frozen mould ; 

And Love and Joy have perished in the cold ; 

And all hath lulled beyond a passing gust 

Or breath to stir the stillness. And the throng 

That used to gaze in rapture, till the sight 

Ached with the charm of Beauty, as along 

Th€ crowded ways in queenly state she went. 

Has vanished in the darkness of that niglit 

Which broods beneath the final monument. 

All hopes, ambitions, plans, and swift desires, 

All dreams, illusions, fantasies, and fears, 
10* H 



114 DEATH. 

That move the blood with warmth of quickening iires, 

Or, to the cheek's rose, give the dew of tears ; 

All wit and wisdom, passion, beauty, art, 

That fill the head and throb the pulsing heart. 

And bring the plaudits of ten thousand hands 

Clapping their praises ; each and all of these 

Are strangely ended. And the actor stands, 

With hard achievement, or with gift of ease, 

Like him of old, within the circling space 

Of Roman Amphitheatre, who stood, 

The gladiator, grand in attitude, 

Each posture firm, strength matched and blent with 

grace, 
Dealing such blows as took away the breath 
In the beholder ; and still w^inning praise 
After his might had felt the touch of death. 
And the quick, resolute eye began to glaze. 
Till the swift stroke relaxed his sinewy limbs. 
And he was deaf to thunderous shouts and calls. 
So, for the Swiftness of the stroke that dims 
The eye to sight, the ear to praiseful hymns, 
All that is human acts and stands and falls; 
So round the Great, the Beautiful, the Wise, 



DEATH. 115 



While shouts reverberate and loud plaudits rise, 
The circling crowd grows dark and reels and swims ; 
And while the show and joy are at their height, 
Death comes and brings the silence and the night. 



116 THE MIRACLE. 



THE MIRACLE. 

"I /TINE be the Spirit that has depth of feeling, 

The hidden sense of things to touch and prove ; 
Then outward form shall be the sign revealing 
The inward jiower and grace of Life and Love. 

Then wait I not, expectant of some wonder. 
To awe and thrill, to shake and startle me, 

The cloud, the flash, the earthquake, and the thunder, 
Before I pause and bow the adoring knee. 

No more I dream of toilsome pilgrimages, 
Nor seek devotion at some distant shrine ; 

No more I grope my way to dusty ages : 
Each place is holy ; every hour divine. 

God is not idle since the prime creation, 
The Lord of Yesterday and nebulous dawn ; 

But lives and works, in endless revelation 
Of majesty undimraed and unwithdrawn. 



THE MIRACLE. 117 

Above, beneath, around me ever moveth 

The Power that ancient Prophet felt and saw ; 

The Might that liveth ever, ever loveth ; 
God present in the everlasting Law. 

In swelling seed, in leaf and bud and blossom, 
The light and life that cheer my daily walk, 

I read a Gospel that can thrill my bosom 

Not less than the fossil Scriptures of the Rock. 

Each forest-bough, with beauty bathed and flooded 
When Spring-time bourgeons through the quicken- 
ing bark. 

Is wondrous as the Almond Branch that budded 
Within the sacred precincts of the Ark. 

Touching the earth with reverent step and lowly, 

I feel the violets stirring in the sod, 
And lo, the ground on which I stand is holy. 

With the secret power, the germinant life of God. 

And where the green breaks into flame of roses. 
Till all the garden learns to glow and blush, 

The unconsuming blaze, to me, discloses 

God present, as of old, in the Burning Bush. 



118 THE MIRACLE. 

My soul discerns the sliadow and the splendor, 

The Arm outstretched in Might and the High Hand ; 

And signs and wonders compass and attend her, 
At every footstep toward the Promised Land. 

The heavens declare, each day, the olden Story, 
And Earth reveals some marvellous hint or trace; 

The cloud becomes a Pillar of Fire and Glory, 
And Nature but another Means of Grace. 

Thus in the little round of the diurnal. 
The life and beauty growing at my feet, 

I see the Infinite and the Eternal, 

Who doth the ceaseless Miracle repeat. 



OUR KNOWLEDGE ALL IS GIRT ABOUT. 119 



OUR KNOWLEDGE ALL IS GIRT 
ABOUT. 

/~\UR Knowledge all is girt about 
^^^ By ignorance and shadowy lines, 
By that which Science makes not out, 
And Law to Fate and Chance resigns; 

To Fate and Chance, or to a Will 
Divine, unknown, without caprice, 

That acts, and moulds serenely still 
The universe by its decrees. 

Our Rules afford a guidance here 
For narrow walks of Use and Art ; 

But what shall make the riddles clear. 
Which Nature asks of every heart? 

Forth from the realms of dusky night. 
With Childhood's piteous blank we come; 

We spell and scrawl some words aright. 
Then all is dark, and we are dumb. 



120 OUR KNOWLEDGE ALL IS GIRT ABOUT. 

The Law of Science and the Rule 
Of. Art soon fail to shape our course ; 

We need a higher, wider school, 

Where Faith and Hope have play and force ; 

'' Where Words become divine Commands, 
And Reverence bows before the Unknown, 
And Prayer uplifts its trusting hands 
Before a Heavenly Father's throne. / 



A MIST OF BUDS. 121 



A MIST OF BUDS. 

A MIST of buds is upon the woods, 
•^-*- And the orchard-boughs are clouds of bloom ; 
The garden shows the red of the rose, 
And the jasmine clambers by my room. 

The sunshine lies where the violet's eyes 
Look softly out from the leaves of green ; 

And the shadow flits across by fits 

When the sailing clouds come in between. 

The lily o' the vale now scents the gale 
With the fragrance of her balmy breath ; 

And the daisy dots with starry spots 

The heaven of sward that spreads beneath. 

Each bulb now thrills to the warmth tliat fills 

The Earth, as the golden moments run ; 

Each leaf and flower drinks dew and shower, 

And throbs to the pulses of the sun. . 
11 



122 A MIST OF BUBS. 

The hours are fair, and all the air 
Glows with a beauty scarce revealed ; 

'T is the rose-bud's hint of the rose's tint, 
That charms the most when half-concealed. 

Sweet time of the Year, abide thou here ; 

Tarry awhile, fly not so soon ; 
Sweet month of May, idle thou by the way, 

Haste not along, nor melt to June. 

O Season sweet, pass not so fleet; 

There are other growths that fain would start; 
On stalk and bough, what Hopes bud now 

In the young Garden of the Heart. 



DUTY. 123 



DUTY. 

TTOW heavenly sweet the -music swells 
-^ From steeple-tops and towers, 
When Duty strikes her golden bells 
To mark the passing hours. 

By day the chiming sounds are heard, 
Though faint, yet softly clear; 

And every pulse of life is stirred 
By the attentive ear. 

And in the watches of the night, 

The sky is filled afar. 
As if the tones were rays of light 

Throbbed by a steadfast star. 

Serene to him the moments run, 

By dusk and early dawn. 
By moon and stars and shining sun, 

Who hears those bells sound on. 



124 SOJVG OF THE WATER. 



SONG OF THE WATER. 



"TTTITH pattering feet I dance and beat 

^^ On the roof; I dash on the window-pane; 
From the foaming spout I bubble out, 
When fall the torrents of the Kain. 



The Cloud is mine; I gleam and shine; 

By sunset's glow to flame I turn; 
The morning's mist grows amethyst 

And gold when the East begins to burn. 

I trail in Fog by marsh and bog; 

With gray I skirt the mountain's brow; 
The valley I fill, I hide the hill. 

And none can find the way I go. 

On leaf and spray I glitter and play 
In beaded Pearls and Drops of Dew ; 

For me the rose looks up and glows. 
And the violet takes a fairer hue. 



SONG OF THE WATER. 125 

With welcome Rain I bathe the plain; 

I feed the tree, the flower, the grass; 
And while I bring new life, each thing 

Smiles sweetly on me as I pass. 

In fitful mood I pour a Flood, 

And ruin the works that man has wrought; 
I swing the flail of the pelting Hail, 

And thrash the harvest into naught. 

In the Rivulet I whirl, and set 

The pebbles to a merry sound; 
Adown the steep I plunge and leap. 

And break to mist ere I touch the ground. 

Through thicket I creep; in Swamp I sleep 

I tinkle down the silent fflen ; 
I haunt the woods and solitudes; 

And I visit the crowded marts of men. 

By lazy Creek I course, and seek 

A way to the swifter, broader flood ; 

I linger where the flowers are rare, 

And sunbeams glimmer through the wood. 
11^ 



126 S0N6 OF THE WATER. 

In the rapid tide of Kiver I glide, 
Past mountain, city, castled steep; 

With ceaseless flow I move, and go 
To lose myself in the Ocean deep. 

I pause, and make in tranquil Lake 
A picture of the sky and shore; 

I mirror true the heaven of blue, 

And pave my depths with the starry floor. 

I unveil my face in the desolate place. 
And lo, the wild begins to smile ; 

To the desert I show what bloom may blow 
By the fruitful courses of the Nile. 

With onward flow I sweep and grow; 

I whiten with the sails unfurled; 
I carry the prize of argosies, 

And mark my path on the map of the world. 

The waves I bear, have sounded where 
The far-off* years and centuries shine ; 

What memories teem beside the stream 
Of the Jordan, Tiber, Po, and Rhine! 



SONG OF THE WATER, 127 

From Fount I gush ; through gorge I rush, 
I curve through meadow green and cool ; 

By a thousand isles I break to smiles, 
And I slumber in the darkling Pool. 

I work with a will ; I drive the mill, 
I grind, I spin, I weave, I pound; 

In the forge I smite, and the furnace grows white 
While the dripping wheel goes round and round. 

I shake the rocks with earthquake -shocks, 
When over Niagara's ledge I fall. 

With Cataract-roar I dash, and pour 
My thunder round and over all. 

When the dyke I break, what havoc I make! 

The plain I change to Gulf and Bay ; 
The Delta I build; I enrich the field; 

And I slowly eat the coast away. 

Along the shore I beat and roar 

Where the Breakers whiten in the storm; 

Beneath my foam I hide the home 
Of many a vanished face and form. 



128 SONG OF THE WATEE. 

In sunken caves are countless graves, 

Where I bury the Dead when the ship goes down ; 

Full well they keep a silent sleep, 

Nor heed when storms are loudest blown. 

By night and day I rock and sway 
In the Tidal wave from pole to pole 

Toward Moon and Sun I rise and run, 
And I lift the ship across the Shoal. 

Where the Gulf-Stream takes its course, and breaks 
From tropic heat to realms of snow, 

I cleave my way through the Ocean -spray, 
And carry a Climate with my flow. 

Where the palm-tree stands in Eastern lands, 
The camel scents my breath afar: 

Beneath the sun of the torrid zone 
What life to burning lips I bear! 

In the mountain- glen I freeze, and then 
To the Glacier's mighty mass I grow : 

By cliff and steep I crawl and creep. 
And push the crag on the vale below. 



SONG OF THE WATER. 129 

From the frozen North I issue forth 

To show what the Winter's cold hath done ; 

I flash and gleam in the Ocean-stream 
As I lead my Icebergs toward the sun. 

Each peak and spire glints frost and fire ; 

Through chasm and arch the streamlets play ; 
I lean and wheel, I topple and reel; 

I shiver and crash and melt away. 

I scatter my spray where the Fountains play, 
I murmur, I prattle, I talk, I sing; 

From the rock I burst to cool the thirst 
Of many a faint and famished thing. 

I ripple, I flash, I eddy, I dash ; 

To murmur, to music, to thunder I break: — 
Of what avail are rudder and sail, 

Where the Maelstrom's seething whirl I make ? 

In Iceland's soil I bubble and boil; 

In the Geyser's fitful jet I rise ; 
From depths profound I shake the ground, 

And veil in a steaming cloud the skies. 
I 



130 SONG OF THE WATER. 

I rest, I sleep in caverns deep, 

I glide, I fall, I leap, I run ; 
I grope my way to the gates of Day 

Through caves that never have felt the sun. 

On the Autumn leaves, my finger weaves 

The fairy net-work of the ,Frost, 
And a thousand dyes enchant the eyes, 

Where the delicate lines have touched and crossed. 

In Snow I fall and whiten all, 

When wintry tempests howl and blow, 

And warm I keep the seeds that sleep. 
For Spring-time's stir and Summer's show. 

On the babbling lip of the brook I slip 

The seal of silence in a trice ; 
And the rushing tide of the river wide 

I bridge with the masonry of Ice. 

A magic feat in the form of Sleet, 

At times, I work in the realms of air; 

And the trees stand drest in a jewelled vest 
Or crash with the burden that they bear. 



SONG OF THE WATER. 131 

From eaves and edge, from rocky ledge, 

I hang the slender Icicle down ; 
From the cavern's top I drip, and drop 

The Column and Shaft of solid stone. 

With change of breath, now life, now death, 
Now sweetness, now decay I bring ; 

Where the Torrent pours, where the Ocean roars 
Is heard the varied Song I sing. 



132 TO THE NIGHT-BLOOMING C E R E U S. 



TO THE NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS. 

r\ MIRACLE of Beauty, why dost thou, 
^^ Quickened and nourished by the warmth and light, 
Hide from the Sun the lustre of thy brow. 
And show thy splendor only to the Night? 

Fearest thou lest the garish glare of day 
Disclose some fleck upon thy snowy cup ? 

Or is it pride, when other flowers are gay, 

That makes thee hoard thy peerless beauty up ? 

Or, out of kind regard and modesty, 
Withdrawest thou until the day is done, 

That lilies may not die of jealousy, 

Nor roses blush to see themselves outshone? 

Or dost thou choose, for thy selectest hour. 

The season when the stars look down on earth. 

That they may know, by thy resplendent power, 
What beauty in this lowly place has birth? 



TO THE NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS. 133 

Through all the livelong day, like a fair bride 
Who could not quit her coy and maiden ways, 

When the night comes, thou drav/est veils aside, 
And then the dusk grows lustrous with thy gaze. 

But why so transient ? Tarry till the dawn. 

Or dreadest thou to stay and be despised. 
Knowing that what is often looked upon, 

Is apt, alas ! to be but lightly prized ? 

Then let me view thee, touched by no regret. 

And bathe me with the fragrance of thy breath ; 

Shine in thy rich array while I forget 

How near approach thy splendor and thy death. 

O short-lived Glory ! most transcendent Bloom ! 

The beauty of thy flower is more to me. 
Because thou wilt be sought for in the gloom, 

And most, because of thy fragility. 
12 



134 TWO PIC TUBES. 



TWO PICTUEES. 



"VrOUTH little cares for cloud and cold ; 

The world is not yet dark and old ; 
He caretli naught for snow and sleet, 
The warm blood tingling in his feet. 



His cheeks are rose, cherry his lips, 
Life pulses down to his finger-tips. 
The storm beats hard on the window-pane, 
But he would feel the wind and rain. 

All Seasons serve him ; all the Hours ; 
May brings her buds, and June her flowers; 
The Autumn brings its fruits for him. 
And Winter crusts with ice the stream. 

Ah, while the Heart within is May, 
He never knows a dreary day ; 
And all the round of all the Year 
Is only song and merry cheer. 



TWO PICTURES. 135 

Age creeps beside the hearth, and sits 
Close wrapt to warm his frozen wits. 
He shudders at the sleet and snow, 
And when the storm begins to blow, 

He blesses God for the window-pane 
That keeps away the wind and rain; 
And he stirs the fire, and calls it cold, 
Because his blood is slow and old. 

No Seasons serve him, no day's sun ; 
For him the Year is all undone ; 
The rose, to him, doth only show 
Like something seen long, long ago. 

The Summers now are pale and mute; 
No juice is in the Autumn's fruit; 
The evening sun shines dim, and hark ! 
He cries, " Bring candles, it grows dark." 



136 USE. 



USE. 

"pEHOLD how Ministry and Use 
-*^ Do beautify the humblest things, 
And quicken them, and give them wings 
To soar toward higher worlds and choose 
New realms of Being. And see how 
The Heavenly can stoop down and bow 
To lowly services, and so 
Transform itself, and rise and grow 
Thrice beautiful. Shall any say 
That the Atom, lying hid away 
In deepest earth, beyond the reach 
Of piercing root and rain and light, 
Or pick and lamp of miner which 
Further invade the realms of night. 
Is lost and dead, and has no use 
Or nice relationship, whereby 
It shoots athwart the burying mould 
A power and presence, and makes bold 



USE. 137 

To show' itself to sun and sky ? 
What though it thicken not the juice 
Of root, nor take a sudden walk 
Toward light and glory, in the stalk 
Of growing plant, it is not loose 
From Law' and Life; nor is it hid 
Wholly from influence. 

For the floor, 
Which air and sunshine cover o'er 
With verdure, and where pyramid. 
Temple, and dome take stable stand, 
Rests on the central atom. And 
Each flower that lifts a heavenward face 
Is shaped and curved to sweeter grace 
By the far attraction. There is Might, 
Forth going from the silent night 
Of the world's centre, that has force 
To urge and guide the starry course 
Of planet round the distant sun. 
Shall that be held as dead and blind 
Which lays foundation, and can find 
A path of light wherein to run 
Serenely onward? In the deep 
Of Being, is there aught asleep 



138 USE. 

Or utterly idle, when 't is found 

How all is interlinked and bound 

In help and love together? Go, 

Ask every flower and blade of grass, 

Each process swift as light, or slow 

As geologic changes ; pass • 

The round of days and years, and climb 

Where cyclic ages mark the time 

For God to vrork by ; you shall see 

Nothing that was or is to be, 

Without relation and a tie 

That holds together low and high, 

And earth and heaven. 

Follow a seed. 
Upborne by breath of sowing wdnd 
To where it may repose and feed 
On dew and darkened mould, and find 
Quiet and nurture. From the cope 
Of heaven, behold the rays that slope 
And shine toward earth, until they rest 
Brightly and warmly on the breast 
Of Nature. Have they power to stir 
The answering life that sleeps in her? 
Or do they slant and idly fall. 



USE. 139 

A wasted effluence from afar, 

To gild with funeral pomp the ball 

That whirls and sweeps round central star? 

The invisible pulses of the Heat 

Enter the soil, and throb and beat 

Round the house of the drowsy germ. 

They gently knock at the little door ; 

They open the windows; they shake the floor 

Whereon Life sleeps, and put a term 

To dreamful rest. Then Light doth wait 

Attendant on the waking form. 

The Sun, that first could only warm, 

Now sheds a splendor round the gate 

"Whence Life forth issues. 

In what state, 
From down among the twisted roots. 
The stem uplifts its shaft, and puts 
A fair shape forward, to be fed 
And nursed by sunshine. What was dead 
And dark and formless, hath become 
Alive by Uses, and doth bloom 
All fresh and vernal. Smell the mould ; 
It is no longer dank and old. 
The countless soft and blackened grains, 



140 USE. 

« 

Wet by the dews, dissolved by rains, 

Have crept within the roots, and slipped 

Along the stalk, and found their way 

To leaf and bud, and shine to-day 

In floweret's chalice dewy-lipped, 

Blooming and beautiful. The rose 

Is earth transfigured, matched and blent 

"With starry presence ; and it shows 

The high alliance. What is meant 

By the lily's spire of snowy bells, 

But that the flower should symbolize 

The purity which flows and wells 

Up from the earth, when smiling skies 

Would wed the lowliest? It makes haste 

To celebrate the marriage-feast, 

And shakes its happy bells, and swings, 

A radiant joy, on the wind's wdngs. 

Dust turns to sweetness round the spot 

Whence growth uprises. Earth is frauglit 

With Life, and breathes an odorous breath. 

Transformed by service, Age and Deatli 

Undo themselves, and run the round 

Of Youth and Beauty, and again 

Climb to the sun, and shape the ground 



USE. 141 

To forms that feel, in every vein, 
A swift pulsation. 

Lo, the Light, 
That ministers in robe of white, 
Is changed, by what it serves, to red, 
Blue, purple, violet, and puts on 
A glorious garment and a crown. 
Where bud or blossom shows its head, 
And shines and flashes many-hued, 
By garden-w^alk or pathless wood. 
O miracle of Wonders ! Who, 
Before the trial, would have thought 
That growing seed had power to do 
Honor unto the Sun, which brought 
It out of darkness : that the bud, 
By sunshine kindly warmed and nursed. 
Slipping from out its sheathing, should 
Have force to shatter light, and burst, 
A winged splendor, on the air. 
Making the day divinely fair, 
And sunshine richer? 

Let this teach 
How far the Lowliest thing may reach 
Forward and up-ward by its Use, 



142 USE. 

And toucli high ends, and so infuse 

Fresh Life and Power; and how the Least, 

Sweetly and livingly increased, 

And by the Greatest served, may be 

Source of new Honor, and may give, 

In turn for loving Ministry, 

As much, or more than it doth receive. 



TJME, THAT SHAPED. 1-13 



TIME, THAT SHAPED THE SWELLING 

BUDS. 



rrilME, that shaped the swellmg buds, 

Plumped the grape and filled the grain, 
Greened the fields and leafy woods, 
Must undo it all again. 



Every trace of bloom is shed, 
On the vine is not a grape, 

Fields are bare and leaves are dead, 
Nothing maketh its escape. 

Time, that gave a touch of grace 
Unto growing limb, and then* 

Rounded forth the perfect face. 
Must undo it all again. 

Through the locks of gold and brown 
Slip the shining threads of gray ; 

Form and fashion tumble down, 
Beauty passeth quite away. 



144 TIME, THAT SHAPED. 

Thus it fares with flower and leaf, 
Thus it also fares with men ; 

Though the miracle be brief, 
Time repeats it all again. 



WORDS FOB THE HEART. 145 



WORDS FOR THE HEART. 

TTTHERE is the thrill of gladness, where the joy 

With which the early days and years swept by ? 
Is bliss the dream of Childhood ? Shall the boy 
Alone know rapture? Must the azure sky 
O'ercloud itself before the light of noon 
Hath shed its brightness, O how swift and soon 
To set in mist and darkness? Was it meant 
That we must linger in a low content 
When we outstep our Youth? Not to repine, 
But drift along, and patiently resign 
Ourselves to Fate ; is that the only doom, 
When once the flower of Life hath dropt its bloom 
Into the stream that runneth by its root? 
And shall the babbling rill that leaped along 
Change to a sluggish Lethe, and the song 
Of every glancing wavelet straight be mute ? 
All bliss foregone, "shall we but ask for peace, 
And wait, as best we may, the long release ? 
13 K 



146 WOEBS FOB THE HEART. 

Such destiny, or worse, before us lies. 
Unless our Manhood grows as Childhood dies : 
Unless, for all the illusions of the dawn, 
\Ye find a joy in Knowledge, and the Truth 
Be more than day-dreams. O, if we are drawn 
Thus unto beauty, we renew our youth. 
We find a rest in action, that no ease, 
AVith all its drowsy reveries, can reach. 
We find a life in use, more nice to please. 
Than hopes or wishes. If we do but teach 
Ourselves, by labor toward some worthy end, 
The bliss that lurks in Duty and makes sweet 
All toils and losses ; then do we defeat 
The shocks of Time ; then do we sway, and bend 
Events to serve us ; then each change is best. 
And leads us forth from losses unto gains ; 
And Love transmutes our failures and our pains 
To joys and triumphs, as we pass to rest. 



QOD, 147 



GOD. 

"TT7HAT in the Transient steadfast doth endure, 

Centre of movement, pathway fixed and sure ; 
What acts where all is still, and in the storm 
Gives to the whirlwind law, the torrent form; 
What is in Motion and yet changeth not, 
In Life and hath no gain of Consciousness, 
In Death and doth not fail nor pass to less ; 
What underlies the Thinker and the Thought, 
And with all growth yet never groweth old ; 
What is in Flame yet suffers not of heat, 
And in the Frost yet hath no touch of cold ; 
What parts to atoms yet remains complete, 
Binds All in One, and makes the perfect Whole ; 
What filleth Space, yet hath no shape nor bound, 
What dwells alike in Silence and in Sound, 
The harmony of both, the Life, the Soul 
Of what is worthiest in you and me. 
Law, Order, Duty, Love, the sweet Unrest 
That will not tarry till it reach the Best, 
That, that is God, had we the eyes to see. 



148 GOD. 

What is i' the Blossom yet is fully blown, 
What in the Ruin yet is not o'erthrown, 
What in the Seed forth reaches unto fruit, 
What in the Tree, is more than leaf or root, 
What in the Present quickeneth all the Past 
And by prevision holds the Future fast, 
What stirs in the Hours yet hath no time nor date, 
What under Form is indeterminate. 
What veils can no way hide nor masks disguise, 
What lens can never show to mortal eyes. 
What all may feel yet none have understood. 
The Strong, the True, the Beautiful, the Good, 
The Soul of Reason, Conscience, Wisdom, Right, 
The Darkness bosomed in the blaze of Light, 
The Mystery lying out of human reach. 
The Marvel that we may not set to speech. 
The Thought that rises where our Knowledge ends, 
The Pulse that stirs us when our Worship blends 
Awe, Aspiration, Sorrow, Praise and Prayer; 
That, that is God, and we may find Him there. 



DE PROFUNDIS. 149 



DE PROFUNDIS. 

IVTO more for me the golden sun is shining in the sky, 
For me no more the brooklet runs in murmuring 

music by ; 
The Past is not beyond regret, but all beyond repair, 
For naught shall give me back again the treasure 

buried there. 

What opiates of the drowsy East can lull the soul's 

unrest, 
And bring again the slumber sweet, and banish from 

the breast 
Life's weariness and ache and void ? 'T is Lethe's 

wave alone 
Can heal the ill, and ease the pain, and silence every 

moan. 

The sights and sounds of other days still linger in my 

thought, 
The shapes and echoes of a world that else had passed 

to naught ; 
13* 



150 DE PRO FUND IS. 

My heart is with the Far- Away, and dreams are more 

to me 
Than all the Near-at-Hand can show, or waking eyes 

can see. 

With lightsome step I climbed the steep and touched 

the mountain's height, 
The pleasant valley lay beneath, the clouds were fringed 

with light ; 
Now from my vision all is shut by cliff and beetling 

crag, 
As down the other side of life, reluctant feet I drag. 

O heavy load! O weary way! when Youth and Hope 

are gone, 
And toward the silence and the night, I still must 

journey on ; 
Yet, with the storm and wreck around, the path may 

grow so drear. 
That night and silence, at the last, shall be how sweet 

and dear ! 



SONG OF THE ROSE. 151 



I 



SONG OF THE EOSE. 

«• 

WOULD not overlook 
The silent winter-brook, 
To view my sadness in the frosted glass; 
But rather, to the tune 
Of all the waves of June, 
Swiftly and sweetly let my being pass. 

I do not choose to cling 

To the stem, a withered thing. 
The sport and mock of every idle gust ; 

I do not choose to wait 

Till from my high estate. 
By slow degrees, I lapse again to dust. 

What would it boot to stay 

Till bird had flown away. 
And till the bee, that comes and sips and hovers, 

Would lightly pass me by? 

Nay, rather let me die 
Than feel the sharp neglect of all my lovers. 



152 SONG OF THE ROSE.' 

I would not lag behind, 

Bearing a weary mind, 
And thinking of the days whose light had past ; 

Lost in a sad amaze. 

Still thinking of the days, 
The happy, happy days that could not last. 

I do not care to see 

Pale Change awaiting me ; 
To watch the fading of my perfect bloom : 

I do not care to go. 

With lingering step and slow, 
And follow all my beauty to the tomb. 

I feel no restless rage 

For bulk and wasting age ; 
Not large extent of space or time be mine: 

Mine be the fairest leaf, 

The sweetest hour, thougli brief, 
The little cup, the moment all divine. 

What though my life be done 
Before the set of sun; 
I reign in queenly splendor while I live, 



• SONG OF THE ROSE. 153 

Nor suffer the disgrace 
Of altered state and place, 
And every keen rebuke that Time can give. 

Happy in all, in this 

Is my supremest bliss, 
That throbbing pulse, with me, hath sudden stop ; 

And that on Summer's breath 

I float away to death. 
And from perfection straight to nothing drop. 

Because I pass so fleet, 

A thousand thronging feet 
Do come and haunt my presence all the while ; 

A thousand loving eyes 

Gaze with a fond surprise, 
And answer back my beauty with a smile. 

And O, because that I 

Know how and when to die. 
Nor to outstay the glory of my prime, 

I live and breathe along 

In every poet's song, 
And keep my freshness to the end of time. 



154 THE MILL-STREAM. 



THE MILL-STREAM. 

r\ STREAMLET, why delay thy step, 
^^ Why cease thy murmuring flow? 
Is it to mirror heights above, 
Within the depths below? 

Wouldst thou be grave philosopher 

Instead of merry clown. 
And, by reflection, turn the world 

Completely upside down? 

Or tarriest thou along the bank 
Where flowers are thick and gay, 

In very love of idleness, 

And out of heart with play ? 

Where is the music of thy voice, 

The heaving of thy breast? 
Have sounds and motions lost themselves 

In ecstasy of rest? 



THE MILL-STREAM. 155 

"Alas!" the Streamlet answered me, 
" Alas ! it is not so : 
'T is not to image heavenly heights 
I quit my murmuring flow. 

"Nor is it out of idleness 

My waves are hushed and still : 
I pause that I may gather strength 
To turn yon clattering mill. 

" The world is noAV a work-day world : 

happy Days of Old, 

What time I ran my babbling course. 
And all the sands were gold. 

" Then all was mirth and jollity, 
And rest or idle play ; 
And heaven and earth together kept 
An endless holiday. 

" I tumbled o'er the roots of trees, 

1 sang and danced along ; 

I rounded many a pebble smooth 
To the music of my song. 



156 THE MILL-STREAM. 

" I dimpled "into eddying whirls, 
I shook the reedy stalks, 
I kissed the leaning wild-flower's lip, 
I laughed, and leaped the rocks. 

"But now, though I have grown so deep 
And widened to a flood, 
Gone are the golden sands ; I rest 
Upon a bed of mud. 

" I tangle in the moss and weeds ; 
I linger in disgrace ; 
Scum overspreads me, and I 've lost 
The power to wash my face. 

"I only stir when turtles slip 
From oflP the rotting logs : 
Heaven help me, where is music now ? 
I am a pond for frogs. 

"Time brings me naught but sleep and tasks, 
A dreamless sleep, and then 
I wake to work, and haste to help 
The busy tribes of men. 



THE MILL-STREAM. 157 

"Tis work, and only weary work, 

With arm and hardened fist; 
And so, as I move oceanward, 

I, too, must grind my grist. 

Then let the heavy wheel go round, 

And let the mill be crammed ; 

What care I? I was happy once, 

But now, alas ! I 'm dammed." 
14 



158 HEAT. 



HEAT. 

TTEAT makes the hold and closing grip 
-*— *- Tliat atom has on atom slip. 
Further apart they stand and glide 
Freely at last from side to side. 
Increase the heat from much to more, 
The breach is wider than before ; 
The solid doth to liquid pass, 
The liquid rushes into gas. 
With such a fury, such a haste, 
The atoms part, that barrier placed 
To stop their course is torn and shattered ; 
The bomb is burst, the fortress battered, 
The earth upheaved, the mountain rent, 
That prisoned atoms may have vent, 
And cleave, through shaken vale or hill, 
A path for their resistless will. 
The cannon's thunder, and the roar 
When floods of fiery lava pour 



HEAT. 159 

Forth from the fierce volcano's top, 
The speed of ball that naught may stop 
Save with a crash and ruinous touch, — 
These are the signs that show how much 
Of sudden and impetuous might 
Is linked with atoms shut from sig-ht. 
And waits the signal made by heat 
To unmask the giant, and complete, 
By instant strength and rending force, 
Such work as all the slower course 
Of other powers would fail to do, 
Though busy years and centuries through. 



160 THE CLOWN'S SONG. 



THE CLOWN'S SONG. 

A KING for my lady's hand ; 
-^ For my master's head a crown ; 

For the learned judge a big wig; and 
A fool's-cap for the clown. 

There are tears in my lady's eyes, 
And my master wears a frown, 

And the learned judge looks owlish-wise; 
But I laugh, a simple clown. 

I shake my cap, and the bell 

Clinks in a dainty sort; 
I shake my merry five wits, and tell 

My waggeries to the court. 

There are tears from my lady's eyes, 
But of laughing they run down ; 

And the learned judge looks roguish- wise ; 
And my master quits his frown. 



THE CLOWN'S SONG. 161 

Then a fig for pomp and rules ; 

The cap against the crown ; 
And against three solemn, stately fools, 

One merry-hearted clown. 
14* L 



162 I WALK THE GARDEN 



I WALK THE GARDEN WHEN THE 
NIGHT. 

T AYALK the garden when the night 

Is cloudless, sweet, and calm ; 
Beneath the many-twinkling light 
I breathe the heavenly balm. 

The bird, in yonder darkling grove, 

Makes music soft and clear. 
And while he pours the notes of love. 

Night holds her breath to hear. 

Among the whispering leaves I go ; 

I watch the flowers that sleep ; 
I feel the cooling night-winds blow 

Across the azure deep. 

Above, it is the heaven of June ; 

And close beside my feet 
The brooklet dreams a summer-tune 

Low-voiced and summer-sweet. 



WHEN THE NIGHT. 163 

I gaze upon the lights that wink 

In the dewy East ; I see 
The splendors of mid-heaven ; I sink 

With those that set to me. 

I touch the skies in the silent hours 

When Night the Soul unbars ; 
Love nestles in the sleeping flowers, 

Hope soars beyond the stars. 



164 TOUCH. 



TOUCH. 

f^ O, child, throw book and satchel by, 

^^ Nor think of lettered task and school; 

Caught by the radiance of his wings, 

Go chase the airy butterfly 

That flashes near the summer pool, 

Or pales the lustre of the flower 

Whereat he drinks the draught that brings 

Lethe of thee. 

Sweet is the hour 
In which that brightness cleaves the air 
Before the vision, and the feet 
Quit beaten track, to follow where 
The meads are pathless ; doubly sweet 
The swift pursuit and glittering flight 
That shape the way, nor care to know 
How far or whither they may go ; 
And sweeter still the dear delight 
Of pause expectant, ere the hand 



TOUGH. 165 

Reaches to where the winged life 

Poises on flower; and most rife 

With jdy accomplished, far most sweet, 

The moment when the touch is fanned 

By the light wings, and fingers meet 

In clasp ecstatic to embrace 

The heedless captive of the chase. 

Alas! what pity it should be 
A touch that soils the lustrous wings, 
And crushes, past all remedy 
That tenderest ministration brings, 
The power of future flight, and makes 
The fragile life a type of much 
That flits before the sight, and shakes 
Its golden pinions many an hour. 
Or folds them by the wayside flower, 
And lures us to the unwise touch. 

Yet were it not an idle chase, 
Nor would the captured butterfly 
Part with his glory, and so die 
Wholly in vain, if we might trace 
Thereby a lesson, and discern 
A truth that elsewhere we may learn 
With sharper pains and greater cost 



166 TOUCH. 

Than radiant form of insect lost : 
How there is Beauty that will bear 
No nearer touch than eye or ear, 
And rather than be closely clasped, 
Far rather than be rudely grasped, 
'T will pass away from Earth, and be 
What thenceforth none may hear or see. 



TO THE SNOW-BIED. 16' 



TO THE SNOW-BIRD. 

TTTHEN the Summer flowers are dead, 

And the birds of Song have fled, 
When the leaves have quit the bough, 
Whence, O Snow-bird, comest thou? 

From thy Northern nest afar. 
Underneath the Polar Star, 
From the Arctic v/intry night, 
Southward thou hast taken flight. 

When the Season howls and blows, 
Shelterless amidst the snows. 
Dost thou nothing fear the Storm? 
Is it Love that keeps thee warm? 

Why not wing a further flight 
Toward a Tropic warmth and light, 
Wliere the orange-groves appear. 
And 't is Summer all the year ? 



168 TO THE SNOW-BTRD. 

Love within thy little breast 
Could not further quit the nest, 
Whither thou wilt soon have flown 
As the piercing days are gone. 

When the Water-fall shall leap 
Down the distant icy steep, 
Thither with the dawn of Spring 
Thou shalt flit on rapid wing 

As an exile thou art come 
From thy Northern nest and home, 
Till the season shall permit 
Thee again to fly to it. 

Thou wouldst rather tarry where 
Wind and snow and biting air 
May a sharp reminder be 
Of the clime that nourished thee. 

Welcome, brave though little heart, 
Welcome, exile as thou art. 
By what skill hath Nature pressed 
So much courage in thy breast? 



TO THE SNOW-BIRD. 169 

When the tempests loudest roar, 
Welcome round the house and door, 
Feed thyself on scattered crumbs : — 
Then, as soon as Spring-time comes, 

Seek once more the glacial vale 
While the Summer suns prevail, 
To revisit me again 
When it snows, and only then. 

Present, thou shalt still be viewed 
As compacted hardihood ; 
Absent, thou slialt be to me 
As a pleasant memory. 
15 



170 CEASE, FOOLISH HEART, 



CEASE, FOOLISH HEART. 

/^EASE, foolish heart, to question and to doubt. 

^-^ Let love and trust the round solution give. 

Life is a marvel past thy finding out. 

Yet not the less for mystery dost thou live. 

Of cloud and darkness is fresh beauty born. 

Without the twilight what were eve or morn? 

Forth from th' Unknown, wonder and worship rise. 

Awe, reverence, aspiration, hope, surprise 

Strike root and have their growth, the largest v>here 

Most miracle aboundeth. It is there. 

In regions free from limit, that the soul 

Puts forth new powers, nor suffers the control 

Wherewith the reason hedges her around. 

Strict definition sets a final bound 

To fancy's flights, and clips the airy wings 

Of swift desires and high imaginings. 

But out of mystery come, as from a source, 

Wide range for hope, and forward-reaching force 



CEASE, FOOLISH HEART. 171 

That passes toward the future, whose delight 

Shall be disclosure. But a clearer sight 

Shall find new depths still underlying each 

Discovery made. Forever out of reach, 

Beyond our compass and full fathoming, 

Alike is world or atom. Every thing 

Is cradled in th' Unknown and girt about 

By veils and darkness. All that lies without. 

Sun, clouds, and stars, what shall be or hath been, 

But wakes fresh wonder in the world within. 



■>. 



172 PRETTY VIOLETS. 



PRETTY VIOLETS. 

T)RETTY violets! sleeping, peeping; 
-^ Soft blue eyes in leafy places; 
Spring-time showeth, Spring-time knoweth 
Nothing sweeter than your faces. 

Dainty rosebuds ! growing, blowing, 
Opening into full completeness ; 

Summer cometh, and she summeth 
All her beauty in your sweetness. 

Dying leaflets! twinkling, sprinkling 
Wood and field with rainbow-glory ; 

Ye are flashes through the ashes 
Scattered by the Autumn hoary. 

Naked branches ! housing, closing 
Little buds from sleet and coldness ; 

Winter tarries, but he carries 

Your sweet promise in his oldness. 



PRETTY VIOLETS. 173 

Signs and symbols ! teaching, preacliing 

Many a Love, Hope, Aspiration, 

All the reasons of the seasons 

Rounding into Expectation. 
15* 



174 THE POET. 



THE POET. 

rriHE stars move silent in their heavenly courses, 

The earth in silence on its axle turns, 
In silence grow the leafy forest-forces. 

And flowers inlay with light their little urns. 

Why then should Poet set his thought to numbers. 
And stir the centuries with ceaseless song? 

Why should he break the quiet of these slumbers 
With sounds that in the distance echo long ? 

Ah ! is it not the silent stars that waken 

The nightingale, while they serenely shine, 
Until the listening air is thrilled and shaken 
■ As with a gush of melody divine ? 

Ah ! is it not the forest whose resistance 

Calls forth sweet plainings from the wooing breeze ? 
Is it not flowers that fill each little distance 

With murmurous sound of ever-haunting bees? 



THE POET. 175 

The Poet thus for Song finds warrant ample, 
And the heart's fulness out of silence grows 

The bird, the bee, the breeze are his example, 
He too must sing of star and leaf and rose. 

And hearkening elsewhere hears he other voices, 
Far-sounding tones and tremulous murmurings. 

At which his soul uprises and rejoices 
As with a sudden gift of tireless wings. 

He hears the brook go whispering through the sedges, 
Or babbling o'er the pebbles by the way ; 

He hears the cataract shout down rocky ledges, 
Mingling its music with the heavenward spray. 

He sees old Ocean now in silence sleeping. 
And now in wave to swelling tide and storm. 

While ripples round the isles are softly creeping. 
Or thunder dashes where the breakers form. 

Then glancing up and homeward to the Human, 
He glows with ecstasy that must be told ; 

Straightway he sings of Love, of Love and Woman, 
A song that never, never shall grow old. 



176 ■ THE POET. 

He sets to verse the ever-changeful story 
Of joy and sorrow, hope, regret, despair ; 

He sings, and Life and Death, and Shame and Glory, 
All find a clear and rounded utterance there. 

Perceiving well the secret, sweet relation 
That underlies all silence and all Song, 

How this is voice, and that is inspiration, 
He bears the flood of harmony along. 

Through him the stars sing in their heavenly courses ; 

The Earth wakes Memnon's music as it turns ; 
The forests knit to song their leafy forces, 

And flowers new-murmur in their honeyed urns. 

With matchless art, through Space and Time he ranges, 
Language his color, and his brush the pen : 

Look how the page, his canvas, shows the changes 
Of sky, cloud, forest, days, years, centuries, men. 

He paints the landscape : transient gleam and shadow 
Give play of movement to tlie calm repose ; 

Mountain and vale and wood and stream and meadow 
Are dipt in light till all the picture glows. 



THE POET. 177 

There tendrils clasp and climb ; there bud the roses ; 

The garden blooms, the forest breaks to green ; 
And down the glen, the leaping brook discloses 

A mist whereon the rainbow rests serene. 

• 
As when the earliest sunbeam falls upon them. 

There shine the flowers in gold and white and blue ; 

And all the freshness, morning scatters on them. 

Still trembles in the glittering drops of dew. 

There move the Hours in ever-circling dances : 

The Dawn bright-eyed and waking flusKed with light; 

Noon veiled in cloudy splendor ; Evening's glances 
From the warm West ; and then the starry Night. 

There move the Seasons : Spring-time buds and blushes; 

The Summer scatters roses all around ; 
The vat is dyed with Autumn's purple gushes ; 

And Winter's heel clinks on the frozen ground. 

There move the . Years : there Childhood smiles and 
prattles ; 
Youth sighs to quit the play-ground and the toy ; 
Broad fields, great cities, smoke of hearths and battles 
Show Manhood's might to fashion and destroy. 

M 



178 the' POET. 

There move the Centuries in grand procession, 
To clang of arms or soft delight of art, 

To Hero's wrath or Troubadour's confession. 
All differing acts of the one great human heart. 

There stands the ruin ivy-crowned, and hoary 
With the slow touch of Time's relentless power, 

Showing fair traces of a far-off glory. 
And a sad beauty as its only dower. 

And 'there are shattered shafts and broken arches 
Strewing the ground with trophies of Decay ; 

There frown the blackened walls where Conquest 
marches 
And brings swift desolation in a day. 

There warriors fight, the dust and blood defiling 
Grim-visaged forms amid the carnage wild :. 

There Hector meets Andromache, and, smiling, 
Puts off the affrighting crest to embrace his child. 

Life's throng sweeps by : each age and each condition ; 

The thankless daughters and the maddened Lear • 
And Romeo breathes the impassioned repetition 

Of Love's sweet story into Juliet's ear. 



THE POET. 179 

And other shapes are there, swift, dainty, airy, 
Fantastic as the clouds tliat storms have curled : 

Titania holds her court, a queen, a fairy ; 

And Puck, with swiftness, girdles all the world. 

The leaflet rustles in the Poet's pages ; 

Birds sing, bees hum, streams lapse with sounding 
flow ; 
He tells Life's story to the listening Ages, 

And how the changing wonders come and go. 

Type of the beautiful and evanescent. 

He never tires to sing the floweret's praise : 

The transient bloom with him is ever present. 
And fragrance fills the passing hours and days. 

He feels the stir of life when April looses 
The tongue of rivulet, and when the roots 

Of plant and tree throb with the secret juices 

That soon shall shape the flowers and swell the fruits. 

He feels the pulses of the sunshine beating 
In leaf and branch ; he sees the glory break 

Beneath his feet, how fresh, how fair, how fleeting, 
When sward and hill-side into bloom awake. 



180 ' THE POET. 

He feels the beauty of the Year in dying, 

When gold and crimson deck the funeral pyre, 

And Autumn shows a leafy radiance lying 
Along the landscape, like a cloud of fire. 

He feels the hope that death may close within it, 
While AVinter nurses, underneath the snow. 

The seeds and bulbs that wait the happy minute 
When frosts are done and storms have ceased to blow. 

Finding in books their daintiest thoughts and fancies, 
He knows the scholar's patient art and care ; 

Then hastes to the leaves of violets, daisies, pansies. 
To read the sweeter lessons written there. 

He sees more glory through the cloud scarce riven 
To show his eye a glimmering star or two, 

Than searching glass can find in all the heaven 
Where nebulous dawn lights up the darkling blue. 

He sees more beauty, beauty that increases. 
In every flower, with every glancing look. 

Than all the crowd who count and take to pieces 
And parse and crush their pleasure in a book. 



THE POET. 181 

He finds Hope hidden where the buds are blowing ; 

And Love in the roses, pricked with Cupid's tliorn ; 
And Labor patient while her fruits are growing ; 

And Plenty crowned among the ripened corn. 

The simplest thing is greatest intimation ; 

To-day re-echoes fuller sounds of yore ; 
The tear-drop hints the law of gravitation ; 

The sea-shell murmurs of the ocean's roar. 

He moves apart, where selfish ways are crowded, 

Nor feels it solitude to be alone ; 
Haunting the glen in leafy verdure shrouded. 

He finds companionship in tree and stone. 

He feels the flaws of changing wind and weather. 
Sees Strength live on, and Beauty smile and die, 

The oak whose toughness knits the years together, 
And rose-leaves scattered ere the day goes by. 

He soars beyond where heavenly blue hath rounded 

This little earth with starry canopy ; 
He sinks to depths that lead hath never sounded, 

And treads the silent flooring of the sea. 
16 



182 THE POET. 

He bows where Art uplifts the temple's column, 
In awful reverence of the All- Wise and Good ; 

His worship is as holy and as solemn 

In the shadowy aisles and arches of the wood. 

He knows the splendor of the r6gal palace, 
The frescoed wall, the tessellated floor ; 

He drinks a rapture from the floweret's chalice 
That pours its beauty round the cottage-door. 

No place is shut against his swift intrusions, 
No time too sacred for his presence there ; 

The Stage is peopled by his grand illusions, 

His incense fills the House of Praise and Prayer. 

He lifts the crown from brows adorned, but laden, 
And shows to kings the empty pomp that kneels ; 

He gives expression to the village maiden 
Of all the secret mystery she feels. 

He sees the Man beneath the husk and cover. 

The robe, the frock, the hood, the cowl, the gown ; 

He finds the dreams and pulses of the lover 
Beneath the cap and motley of the clown. 



THE POET. 183 

Drawing aside the masks and the disguises 

That Rank, Wealth, Fashion, Beauty, choose to wear, 

The state that awes, the grandeur that surprises, 
He lays the hidden springs of action bare. 

He drops the line deep in the heart's recesses, 

Where Science hath no plummet that may reach ; 

He gathers truth from wondrous hints and guesses. 
Where Logic fails to apply her forms of speech. 

He knows the wise man's wit, and the fool's folly, 
The unrest of idling, the repose of toil ; 

He hath, beside, his own sweet melancholy, 
Wherein to set his blisses as a foil. 

He sings of Friendship, Troth in secret plighted. 
The words that Love doth whisper but to one ; 

Ambition, Fame, Faith broken, and Hope blighted, 
And Sorrow making helpless wail and moan ; 

Of War that blows a blast of desolation 

O'er palace, hamlet, citadel, and field ; 
Of Peace that builds the town, and fills the nation 

With fruits the laurel knows not how to yield, 



184 THE POET. 

With wheaten sheaf, instead of poisonous berry, 
With grape and olive, song and joyous ease, 

And oil and wine, and hearty cheer and merry, 
And sun-browned Toil to earn and welcome these. 

He fills the by-gone Years with life and power ; 

The Past no more is a forgotten dream : 
The mould revives in leaf and bud and flower, 

And through the dusk strange forms of beauty gleam. 

In Court and Camp, at thronging Tilt and Tourney, 
And round the May-pole on the village-green, 

And, staff in hand, upon the distant journey. 

Pilgrims and peasants, kings and knights are seen. 

Time, Change, Oblivion fail, through him, to banish 
Kemembrance of the Early and the Dead : 

The world's fair dawn shall never wholly vanish, 
Nor thought of days that long ago have fljd. 

Bwift from the sheath the sword leaps forth and flashes ; 

The coat of mail shakes ofl* its film of rust ; 
The ancient fire glows underneath the ashes. 

And hearts still throb that now are naught but dust. 



THE POET. 185 

The olden world comes back with sound of thunder, 
And noise of many voices, and the shout 

And tumult of the passions, Joy and Wonder, 
And rain of tears, and laughter ringing out. 

The Past grows dear and consecrate and holy ; 

There lies our Youth and the World's Youth ; and 
there 
Repose the Dead : and swift to it, or slowly 

Shall all be gathered that is young and fair. 

And dear the Present is, with seed and blossom, 
Sweet thoughts that bud and wait their coming prime; 

And dearer still the Future, in whose bosom 
Is held the sum and end of Life and Time. 

Thus Life is bound to Death, and Joy to Sorrow, 
All days together, and the Young and Old ; 

The buds that clasp their beauty for To-morrow, 
And relics that the ribs of rock enfold. 

Above the grave where Youth and Joy have perished, 
He plants the flower and waters it with tears ; 

And what the Past hath fondly nursed and clierished, 
He embalms in verse for all the coming Years. 
16* 



186 THE POET. 

Touching the extremes of being, he embraces 
By subtle sympathy each various part ; 

Through all the Protean change of times and places 
He speaks the common language of the Heart. 

This is his Warrant, his divine Commission : — 
To know, to feel, to climb, to fathom well 

Pleasure and pain and rapture and perdition, 
Earth and the highest heaven and lowest hell : 

To shape great Aims, great thoughts to plant and 
nourish; 

To sow the seed of action in desire ; 
To make old memories live again and flourish ; 

To fix high Ends that lead still on to higher : 

To find the Past in present consummation ; 

To give all moments common drift and scope ; 
To teach the restless joy of Aspiration; 

To fill the Future full of largest Hope: 

To walk among the dew-drops of the morning ; 

To bear the morn's sweet freshness on toward noon ; 
To watch the May-bud every stalk adorning ; 

To show the bud of May to the flower of June: 



THE POET. 187 

To invest the simplest daily act with beauty ; 

To give our common life a charm and grace ; 
To inspire with Love the solemn w^ords of Duty ; 

To change the hearth-stone to a sacred place : 

To teach a reverence for the small and lowly ; 

To make the heaven an azure temple-dome ; 
All seasons beautiful, all places holy ; 

To consecrate the very name of Home : 

Each passing form of loveliness to cherish ; 

To catch the flying shapes as they appear; 
To breathe the violet's sweetnevss ere it perish, 

And make the daisy flourish all the year : 

To arrest the transient ; to endow the dying 
With an eternal youth, beauty, and power ; 

To fix forever forms the swiftest-flying. 

As when they shone in their selectest hour : 

To show how Love doth dream, how Madness rages ; 

To speak all human thoughts that may be told ; 
To sing the song that pains and then assuages ; 

To lead men forth to the fabled Age of Gold : 



188 THE POET. 

To find for grief soft interlude of pleasure ; 

To dull the cutting, scythe-edge all he can ; 
To trick the robber, Time, of many a treasure ; 

To keep alive the Child's heart in the Man : 

To show the Muses circling round Apollo, 

Truth, Beauty, Love, and Joy linked hand in hand, 

Goodness to lead the group, and Use to follow 

With Song and Dance through all the happy Land. 

For naught was meant for Silence, all for Singing ; 

All things conspire toward a harmonious whole ; 
Each smallest part, its snatch of music bringing, 

Completes itself within the Poet's soul. 

This is the magic that transcendeth reason, 

This is the acme of the Poet's skill. 
To scan the Eternal Ages in the Season 

Which briefly Time allotteth him to fill. 

He comes and goes ; he glances at the splendor 
Of shining sun and cloud sufliised with light. 

The morning's glow, the twilight sweet and tender. 
And darkness throned upon her starry height: 



THE POET. 189 

Yet in this eye-flash at the passing wonder, 

He reads the miracle of Life, and e'en 
The mystery of Death that lieth under 

All things that are, or shall be, or have been. 

Of Birth, Life, Death, and what beyond may follow. 
The joy, the pain, the swift exchange of each; 

Of earth and stars, and spheres beyond the hollow 
Of the blue sky, and far beyond the reach 

Of piercing glass ; of the profound abysses 
That yawn beneath our feet ; of Lethe's wave. 

And fiery Phlegethon that roars and hisses 
Beneath the coldness of the silent grave ; — 

Of these he sings, has sung, will sing forever, 
"While man is man, and Seasons go and come ; 

Of these he sings, and will be silent never. 
Until Death strikes the final Poet dumb. 



190 SHOW ME DEATH. 



SHOW ME DEATH. 

OHOW me Death ; but paint not him 
^^ As a monster gaunt and grim, 
Striking horror and disgust 
Ere he gives the mortal thrust. 

Show him as an Angel fair, 
From the upper fields of air, 
Full of tenderness and grace, 
With how sad, how sweet a face. 

Call him Angel of Release, 
Bringing silence, sleep, and' peace. 
Calm to many a troubled breast. 
To the worn and weary rest: 

Bringing slumber unto those 
Who are sighing for repose. 
Shelter to the tempest-tost. 
Lull of anguish to the lost. 



SHOW ME DEATH. 191 

Who shall drowse the sense of pain, 
Cool the fever of the brain, 
And, through all the frame, impart 
Ease beyond the reach of art? 

Who the throbbing pulse shall still, 
Blunt the cutting edge of ill, 
Medicine each bitter grief, 
Bring the perfect, long relief? 

When the Sorrow is past cure. 
Naught being left but to endure, 
Death comes in, the final friend, 
Death, the Angel of the End. 



192 A THOUGHT FOB CHRISTMAS. 



A THOUGHT FOR CHRISTMAS. 

"VrOT in Spring-time's budding freshness, 
■^^ Nor in Summer's opened prime, 
Nor amid the wealth of Autumn, 
Blossoming or fruitful time; 

But when Winter's icy sceptre 
Reigned all desolate and drear, 

Was the world'e Redeemer brought forth 
Of the almost dying Year. 

Therefore, though the world's redemption 

Tarry yet a little while ; 
Still let Hope and full Assurance 

Every waiting hour beguile. 

Though its Spring-like Youth has faded, 
And its Summer-time hath gone. 

And the Oldness of its Autumn 
Draweth, in its season, on, 



A THOUGHT FOR CHRISTMAS. 193 

Yet hope thou, hope thou forever, 
Winter's strength is not yet past; 

Lo! the World's Salvation cometh, 
As its Saviour came, at last. 
17 N 



194 THE HERBARIUM. 



THE HERBARIUM. 

"TJOOR Flowers! crushed by leaves of books, 
-*- From your forlorn and faded looks 

I learn that Science is not able 
To keep the freshness and the bloom, 
The fragile grace and sweet perfume 

Of what she has the skill to label. 

Sad types ye are of fairer things, 

Of Hearts with bloom, of Thoughts with wings. 

Faded and crushed, these many ages, 
By Bookish Art. Alas ! for skill 
That only knows to pluck and kill. 

And bury in its mound of pages. 



FROM THE KING TO THE CLOWN. 195 



FROM THE KING TO THE CLOWN. 

• 

TjlROM the king to the clown 
-^ Every one goeth down, 
Rich and poor, great and small, 
They go down, one and all, 
Unto Death. 

And I said, "Foolish Heart, 
Wouldst thou dwell where thou art, 
Joining not with the throng 
That goes throbbing along 
Unto Death?" 

Then my heart answered, "No, 
With my Kind let me go; 
Let me beat to the tune 
Leading all, late or soon, 
Down to Death." 



196 PROVIDENT. 



PROVIDENT. 

rpHE Bee, among the summer flowers, 
-^ Grows not so intoxicate with sweet 
As to forget that passing hours 
Will shed the bloom, and snow and sleet 
Will cover all the waste. Full well 
He loads his thighs with dust of gold, 
And kneads the wax, and builds the cell 
To hive the honey and to hold 
The radiant Season's rare excess 
Against the days of cloud and cold. 
And so the sweets of May-time bless 
December's bleakness, and he stays 
Warm housed, and tastes the hoarded spoil, 
Until the year brings back the days 
When forth from out the loosened soil 
The stalks arise, and buds begin 
To swell upon unnumbered boughs, 
And sweetness stores itself within 
The flower. And then he doth arouse 



PROVIDENT. 197 

For timely flight, and chase once more 
The winged hours, that soon shall lead 
The glory of the wood and mead 
To dust and darkness as before. 
17* 



198 ELIXIR VIT^. 



ELIXIR VIT^. 

"T IVING too long where brick and rnortar crushes, 
-^ Hearing the tread of countless busy feet, 
Watching the Life that far more fiercely rushes, 

Than flame or whirlwind, through the narrow street ; 

What wonder if the heart have intimations 
Of drouth and hardness and untimely age ; 

If dreams of Youth depart, and aspirations 
Of Manhood seem to end in strife and rao;e ? 



o" 



Against this power of Time to sere and harden, 
Go try the charm that Nature's presence yields ; • 

Go seek the balm and fragrance of the garden 
And all the soothing influence of the fields. 

Pause where the gush and plash of summer fountain 
AVith slumbrous sound and coolness fills the air; 

Climb far above the mists that skirt the mountain 
And breathe a larger, freslier being there. 



ELIXIR VIT^. 199 

Haunt leafy woods, with verdurous lights and shadows ; 

By bank of gurgling brook repose awhile ; 
Learn all the varying sweetness of the meadows, 

The nod of grass, the wild-flower's heavenly smile. 

Then walk again the pavement hard and dusty, 
With step that freshened on the blowing heath ; 

Among the books and parchments old and musty, 
Shall come remembrance of the violet's breath. 

Through all the roar of streets and din of alleys. 
The strife of Trades and wranglings of the Courts, 

Shall steal the silent sweetness of the valleys, 
And Love shall write his Volumes of Reports. 



200 THE CLO UD, 



THE CLOUD. 

nnHE cloud that curtains all the sky 

Is the one that brings the rain ; 
And a thousand things are fed thereby, 
Upon the darkened plain. 

Look how the grass begins to grow, 
And the vine to climb and spread. 

And the bud to swell itself, and show 
The hidden white and red. 

The Sorrow that bedims the heaven. 
Like the fruitful cloud appears ; 

And the growth of tenderest thoughts is given 
To the ministry of tears. 

For look how Love then hath its flood, 
And the heart doth clasp and climb; 

And the Soul, that hid its life in bud, 
Blooms out in the sad, sweet time. 



COMPENSATION. 201 



COMPENSATION. 



T ET the Earth spin round and bring 
-^ T>'^iY and night, sunshine and shadow, 
All the pretty buds of Spring, 

Summer's bloom to wood and meadow ; 



Let its motion touch the trees 
With a brief Autumnal glory; 

Let the Winter hide all these 
Underneath his mantle hoary; 

Let it thread the gold with gray, 

Steal a blush from out Life's roses : — 

For each charm it takes away, 
Some new beauty it discloses. 

Does the Sun sink down the skies, 
Darkness shutting twilight tender? 

Look, a thousand stars arise. 

And the Night is filled with splendor. 



202 COMPENSATION. 

Does the Winter come and blow 
All the brown leaves into hollows? 

Spring shall make the fairer show 
For the bleakness that she follows. 

Does the golden turn to gray? 

Wisdom comes as time flies fleeter. 
Do the roses fade away? 

Dying roses breathe the sweeter. 

Then let Earth spin round and bring 
All its wondrous, swift mutations : 

Birth, Life, Death, lo! every thing 
Hath its subtle compensations. 



THEN BID ME SINQ N M E E. 20o 



THEN BID ME SING NO MORE. 

TTTHENEVER Spring doth come, 

And in the blossom there is not the hum 
Of wandering bees, and on the bough is heard 

No voice of warbling bird ; 

Then bid my Song be dumb. 

When Summer dawns and goes. 
Nor brings the peerless beauty of the rose. 
Nor finds the nightingale beside his nest, 

For silence all too blest; 

Then bid my Music close. 

When Autumn dofis his suit. 
And shows upon the branch no ripened fruit, 
And Plenty shouts no happy harvest-hymn 

With Horn filled to the brim ; 

Then bid my Voice be mute. 



204 THEN BIB ME SING NO MORE. 

And when the Winter hoar 
Shall muffle all, and with his sullen roar 
Shall lull asleep no seed nor living thing 

That waits the joyous Spring ; 

Then bid me sing no more. 



BEFORE THE AUTUMN DAYS ARE GONE. 205 



BEFOEE THE AUTUMN DAYS ARE 
GONE. 

XJEFORE the Autumn days are gone 
"^ Or shake their leafy glories down, 
A purple robe the oak puts on, 
The hickory wears a golden crown. 

His oriflamme the maple lifts, 
A cloud of opal veils the ash, 

And through the glens and forest rifts 
The sumach shines in scarlet sash. 

The dogwood dons his crimson suit. 
The russet acorn fills his cup, 

The wild-grape shows his purple fruit 
Upon the vine that clambers up. 

In glancing hues, by wood and glade, 
Their Summer dress the trees disguise 

For carnival and masquerade. 
Before the happy season flies. 
18 



206 BEFORE THE AUTUMN DAYS ARE GONE. 

And fair the steadfast colors shine 
Amid the brilliance of decay, 

Where holly, cedar, fir, and pine 
Their tints of evergreen display. . 

And fresher, by the garden -walks. 
The scarf of changeless verdure shows 

Upon the hardy hedge of box 

That thus defies the coming snows. 

The ivy lights its funeral pyre 
Before the climbing foliage drops, 

And, like a sheet of ruddy fire, 

Creeps o'er the walls and chimney-tops. 

From orchard-rows the apples gleam 
In many a mellow streak and stain; 

The willows hang above the stream 
Like clouds of mist before the rain. 

The chestnut parts his prickly burrs 
To show a shell of richest dye. 

O'er stubbled fields the jpartridge whirs, 
And calls his mate with plaintive cry. 



BEFORE THE AUTUMN DAYS ARE GONE. 207 

From limb to limb the squirrels run, 

A restless flash of red or gray, 
In haste, before the year is done, 

To store the ripened nuts away. 

Long lines of film float high in air 
And wave and shine with lustrous gloss, 

And gossamer- nets are woven where 
The spider throws his threads across. 

Unnumbered insects flit and dance 
By stream and woodland, vale and hill, 

And, in the lingering sunshine, glance 

Through brilliant waltz and brief quadrille : 

A countless throng of happy things 
That measure off the transient hours 

With mazy flight and hum of wings. 
Nor heed the fall of leaves and flowers. 

In noisy conclave on the bough, 
In parliament by eaves and fence, 

The birds collect, and argue how 

And when to take their journey hence. 



208 BEFORE THE AUTUMN DAYS ARE GONE. 

"Why stay when Summer days have flown? 
Why linger round the empty nest? 
We '11 chase the Months from zone to zone, 
And find each Season still the best. 

" 'T would be of wings a wilful waste 
To follow not the slanting sun 
By southward flight and timely haste, 
Before the pleasant days are done." 

Then clouds of blackness blot the blue, 
Where feathered flocks are on the wing 

For absence, till the Year renew 
Itself among the sw^eets of Spring. 

Like globes of gold the pumpkins glow 
AVithin the fields of faded maize. 

Whose ears of yellow ripeness show 

The wealth that lurked in Summer's rays. 

Where ploughs have browned the vale and slope, 
The cheerful spires of wheat are seen. 

That fill the waning days with Hope 
And keep the heart of Winter green. 



BEFORE THE AUTUMN DAYS ARE GONE. 209 

And where on grassy lawns and hills 

The early freshness is not lost, 
The pearls of dew, that Night distils, 

Are changed to diamonds by the Frost. 

A film of ice o'ercrusts the pool 

When Morning greets the laggard Sun; 

And brisk and ruddy-cheeked to school, 
"With smoking breath the children run. 

A round and fiery disk of red 

Drops slowly down the tranquil west, 

And slumbrous light on all is shed 
Before Repose is drowsed to Rest. 

And while the South-west gently blows 
Autumnal smoke from Summer's blaze, 

The Landscape softly dreams, and shows 
Its glory through a golden haze. 

'^The Earth is as a censer swung. 

And fills the Heaven with odorous breath. 
Before the Year moves on among 

His fellows, and lies down to death, 

18* 0. 



210 BEFORE THE AUTUMN DAYS ARE GONE. 

In place of tasselled boughs and buds, 
A thousand shifting tints and dyes 

Play in the Sun, and o'er the woods 
An iridescent splendor lies; 

How soon to fade and fall away 

When frosts are sharp and winds have blown, 
And all this pomp and rich array 

Is whirling leaves of sombre brown. 

But not beyond repair: for soon 

As Winter's storm and sleep have past. 

The bloom of every May and June 
Shall still be fairer than the last; 

Fairer and sweeter every flower 

That springs from richer, deeper mould ; 

From dust and death, Life decks her bower. 
And Earth grows Young in growing Old. 



TO THE HUMMING-BIRD. 211 



TO THE HUMMING-BIRD. 

T>RIGHT, many-tinted bird, 
-^ A wondrous life thou art: 
To think such sounding motion should be heard 
Where beats so small a heart! 



Through the long summer hours 

Thou flittest everywhere, 
With wings deep-colored as the summer flowers, 

And feet that rest on air. 

Not where the shadow lies 

About thy hidden nest, 
Didst thou, of leafy dimness, catch the dyes 

With which thy life is drest. 

Thou, into heaven's cloud dipping. 

Hast caught the rainbow's hue; 
Or, of the flowers, hast drunk the tints, while sipping 

The honey and the dew. 



212 TO THE HUMMING-BIRD. 

So soon as from my sight ► 

Thy swift wings disappear, 
What charmed the eye with play of broken light, 

With motion charms the ear. 

Poised for a moment there 

Before the floweret's cup, 
On viewless wings reposing in the air, 

Thou drink'st the nectar up. 

Hath God denied thee voice, 

So richly dowered beside? 
Or fearest thou to tell thy little joys 

In world that is so wide? 

Yet no one goes unheard, 

Whose action speaks or sings ; 
And thus thou fliest, bright and beauteous bird, 

With music in thy wings. 



THE POPPY. 213 



THE POPPY. 

T^KOWSY Poppy, glowing and red, 
-^ Sleeping and dreaming in the sun, 
When the winds pass thou noddest thy head, 
Dreaming and sleeping on. 

Is it of drinking heavenly dew, 

Or is it of feasting on earth and fire. 

Thou hast gotten that bacchanal hue, 
And art filled with dreams and desire? 

Earth and fire, not heavenly dews 
Have fed thee and filled each vein 

With the thick and sluggish and maddening juice 
That poisons, yet lulls the pain. 

O unwise and perishing flower. 

Sleeping and dreaming, nodding and gay, 
And dying, alas! in the self-same hour, 

Emblem of others who pass away ! 



214 WHO BID WIN THE POET'S PRAISE? 



WHO DID WIN THE POET'S PRAISE? 

TT7H0 did win the Poet's praise 

In the far-oif, early days ? 
'T was the Hero : he who could 
Head the affray and shed the blood 
Of his fellow without stint. 
Brow of brass and heart of flint, 
Hand to grasp the shining blade, 
Arm to wield it undismayed 
Where the fight was thickest, he 
Was the man of high degree, 
Warrior, hero, ruler, king; 
And the poet scarce <3ould sing 
All the glory, all the fame 
Of the mighty monster's name. 

Who will win the poet's praise 
In the coming years and days? 
It will be the one who can 
Kindliest aid his fellow man, 



WHO DIB WIN THE POET'S PRAISE? 215 

Guide and comfort and protect; 

He shall be the Chief elect. 

Love shall rule the world that late 

Felt the sway of scorn and hate. 

Caste has vanished, slavery falls, 

Rank no longer proudly calls 

Right divine the strength of kings. 

Man is man, the poet sings; 

He is greatest, wisest, best. 

Who most loves and serves the rest. 



216 SEEDS. 



SEEDS. 

TJEHOLD the Greatest closed within the Least, 

■^-^ The Past summed up and sweetly miniatured, 

Store whence the living Present is increased, 

And where the hopeful Future hath insured 

Its pledge of promise. Every several seed 

Hath its appointed way, and cunning force 

To blend and shape the elements, and lead 

Them on and upward by a wondrous course 

Of life and growth. In hardened shell and rind 

And housing husk, what things of bulk and weight. 

What prodigies of strength and lordly state, 

And shining forms of beauty do we find, 

All germinally present. Rounded there. 

Within the dainty ball and acorn-cup, 

The goodly Oak lies packed and folded up, 

Awaiting sun and rain and nursing air, 

To spread his leaves and branches broadly fair. 

Within the little, hardened cone of Pine, 



SEEDS. 217 

There stands the shaft whose climbing top shall shine 

In morning's earliest gleam, and often know 

The trailing cloud when all is clear below. 

The grain of Hemp encloses weighty bales 

Of woven fibre that shall form, as sails, 

The wings of Commerce. Endless coils of rope. 

Cordage and cable, there are twined and curled 

About its hidden centre. Who would hope 

To see the ships aud navies of the world, 

Strong knees and solid ribs of heart-of-oak, 

That fail not in the shock and thunder-stroke 

Of storm or battle ; masts of pine that stand 

Rootless, but firm, as when upon the land 

The trunks stood rooted ; branching spars that spread 

The swelling canvas proudly overhead ; 

And hempen cords that pipe a merry tune 

To the restless winds, when clouds have hid the moon : — 

What dreamer would have ever hoped to see 

Huge fleets for war and worldly mastery. 

And ships for peaceful trade, come sailing forth 

From out these little seeds? 

The sight is worth. 
By way of miracle, a thousand-fold 
More than is dreamed in Eastern tales, and told 
19 



218 SEEDS. 

Of sudden transformation strangely wrought 

By genii, magic, and I know not what, 

To watch the marvellous changes swift or slow, 

Which Nature has the wit and skill to show 

In living process and in growing form, 

Waked by the sun and strengthened by the storm. 

Methods and shapes are there which give, in turn, 

The hint and matter whence the wise may learn 

New uses and fresh beauties to impart. 

By the final touch and moulding hand of Art. 

Drop but a seed of floweret in the ground. 
What time the opening Year makes pleasant days. 
O wisdom secret, movement how profound ! 
The sunshine comes and creeps about and plays 
Upon the soil ; the early morning brings 
His dewy tribute ; borne on breezy wings. 
The clouds cast shadows, and the gentle rain 
Makes pattering music. Soundeth it in vain ? 
The fall hath stirred and wakened something ; lo ! 
A spiry tip of green begins to show. 
Pushing the earth aside; and fair and soon 
Buds burst in beauty to the louder tune 
Of showery drops, and, opening, spread and grow 
To the full flower. 



SEEDS. 219 

Go ask, I pray, and tell, 
Can any learned chemist do as well ? 
Can he transmute a little rain and dust 
To such a thing of light and glory ? He 
May fuse the stubborn ore, and thus set free 
The lustrous metal from the masking rust. 
Retort and crucible and fiery heat 
May help him on to many a Protean feat 
Of cunning transformation. He may find 
New elements and compounds which mankind 
Will hold as priceless, and he may disclose 
The fragrant attar lurking in the rose ; 
But yet he wholly fails to put together 
Such atoms as the smallest grain of seed 
Can group and blend, with help of favoring weather, 
In gayest flower or plainest way-side weed. 
In every slender blade of growing grass 
There lies a secret skill that doth surpass 
Knowledge and art of man ; in every bud 
A wonder dwells that is not understood ; 
In every seed and bulb and leaf and tree 
Is hid away a sacred mystery. 
We fail to tell aright the Why and How 
Of any bud or blossom on the bough ; 



220 SEEDS. 

We fail to lay the inmost secret bare, 

That tints the flower and fills the fragrant air 

With odorous breaths. What is it that distils 

Such essence from the rugged rocks and hills ? 

What shapes and holds in one, earth, air, and dew ? 

What changes light to red and gold and blue ? 

Whence comes the hidden and transcendent power 

To form the bitter, pungent, sweet, and sour ? 

What drills the elements to wheel and march 

Toward oil and resin, sugar, fibre, starch ? 

What sets the whirl of freer currents loose 

In fruity pulp and store of luscious juice ? 

By what remote adjustments shrewd and nice 

Come the aroma and the wafted spice 

That make the Earth a garden, and the air 

A load of perfume for the winds to bear ? 

What knows to guard the precious treasure well 

By rind and husk and prickly barb and shell ? 

In what alembic doth the delving root 

Digest the crumbling silex, and transmute 

The formless clod to a thing of heavenly grain ? 

A thousand years have asked, and asked in vain 
Such questions, and have failed, as yet, to touch 
The bottom of the mystery. Although much 



SEEDS. 221 

Lies writ and solved in Formula and Law, 

Yet every answer doth but lead and draw 

A little deeper down and further on ; 

And still we walk as in the dewy dawn 

And glimmering twilight ; and before our gaze, 

Vague forms and shadowy clouds and kindled haze 

Float in the brightening glow that eastward flecks 

The misty pomp with play of golden streaks. 

We find in wood and tangled wild and mead 

A riddle that we may not clearly read ; 

We find a glory and a changeful grace 

In bud and flower, and nameless hidden ways 

In downward-striking root and climbing stalk, 

That baflie all our self-complacent talk. 

What then, at last, is left us ? Though we find 
Our wisdom fail and halt or lag behind. 
Although with furthest reach and strain of wit 
We seek to know, nor yet can compass it ; 
This treasure still is left us, to admire. 
To love, to fondly cherish, to desire 
A ministry and humble service where 
We may not fully know. And thus we reach 
The joy of Loving even better there. 

More sweetly, more entirely, that our speech 

19* 



222 SEEDS. 

Is stopped by Reverence, or, when found, doth run 

To match with Music, from the sudden gush 

Of deepest feeling ; and a bliss is won 

That other knowledge knows not ; and the hush 

Is broken by the thrill of poet's Song 

When Love and Wonder blend, and find a tongue. 

Let naught of slight or disrespect be shown, 
For this, toward human wit and learned skill. 
Our Failures only make the limits known 
Which hedge about and hold the marvellous Will, 
Wisdom, and power of Man, that thereby he 
Shall always feel the secret, sweet control 
Of somewhat Higher, and shall only be 
So trusted and endowed with rule and sway 
Of this fair, earthly dwelling, that he may. 
In altering parts, not shake or mar the whole, 
Nor lose, at last, from out his growing Soul, 
The seeds of Virtues which alone can bless. 
Love, Hope, and Faith, and childlike Humbleness. 



FROM DAWN TO DUSK. 223 



FROM DAWN TO DUSK. 

Tj^ROM dawn to dusk, from dusk to dawn. 

We spin our courses round the sun, 
And Spring and Youth have come and gone, 
And nothing rests or seemeth done. 

The violet hath smiled and passed. 
The rose's bloom hath blov;n away; 

No shape of grace hath leave to last, 
No beauteous thing may make its stay. 

Why should the flower come forth to shine 
One day, nor tarry longer here ? 

Why make one little hour divine, 
Then desolate the dreary year? 

The restless Seasons come and go, 
And leave their traces as they pass, 

Till we are changed and scarcely know 
Our altered faces in the glass. 



224 FROM DAWN TO DUSK, 

We build a house, we plant a tree, 
We find a wife, we name a child, 

To quit them all straightway, and be 
A stranger where the homestead smiled; 

To be a memory and a name 

Cut in the stone and hid by moss: 

We vanish swiftly as we came. 
And learn the bitterness of loss. 



OWNERSHIP. 



OWNERSHIP. 

"ITTHO hath title sure and good 

To the meadow, sky, and wood ? 
"Who hath most of ownership 
In the wild-flower's dewy lip? 
Whose dominions stretch as far 
As the twinkling light of star. 
Or the glimmer that he catches 
From the fainter nebulous patches? 
Who of time hath largest lease, ' 
Owneth happiness and peace, 
And from earth and life doth get 
Most of joy and least of fret? 

'T is not he whose coffers hold 
Heaviest heaps of hoarded gold ; 
'T is not he whose parchments take 
Largest step from stone to stake, 
And convey from sire to son 

Vast estates whose titles run 
P 



226 OWNERSHIP. 

Back through many a learned word 
Unto force and fraud and sword. 
Wealth there is that far exceeds 
"What may pass by wills and deeds, 
Wealth whose title hides no flaw 
In the jargon of the law, 
Riches that no form of might 
Gets and holds apart from right. 
Ownership that may not be 
Wrenched or slipped away from me. 
He whose knowledge deepest goes 
And whose life his wisdom shows, 
He who loves the most and best 
Owneth more than all the rest, 
Finds the quintessential part 
Never sold in shop or mart. 
Worth whose value, comfort, pleasure, 
Numbers fail to count or measure. 
Knowledge, sympathy, and love 
Touch and enter heaven above. 
Find a beauty fair and sweet 
In the floweret at our feet, 
And in flinty rock can see 
Solid use and ministry. 



OWNERSHIP. 227 

Health and Joy the owners are 
Of the world and sun and star. 
Shady forest, smiling lawn, 
Dusk of evening, flush of dawn. 
Song of bird and voice of rill, 
Stretch of vale and slope of hill, 
Nature's riches and the part 
Added thereunto by Art, 
All the miracles that Man 
Has the cunning wit to plan 
And the skill to fashion fair. 
Pictures, music-shaken air, 
Vast cathedrals, sculptured stone, 
Works that Time hath overthrown. 
Wreck and ruin, ashes, dust ; — 
All of these are theirs, and must 
Stay with them, nor ever choose 
Heartiest- service to refuse. 

Men may count their sharp per-cents. 
Gather tithes, distrain for rents, 
And amass the minted ore. 
Craving still for more and more, 
And with every reckoned gain 
Find fresh poverty and pain. 



228 OWNERSHIP. 

What we have yet fail to use 
Is the thing we w^holly lose. 
Bury worth, and straightway, lo! 
Unto rust the riches go. 
Number may not all express 
What hath most of preciousness, 
Nor is rarest value told 
In the sums of shining gold. 
Meanness finds in wealth a care ; 
Greed makes poor the millionaire. 
All the best that nature yields 
Comes to me across the fields, 
Or from out the heavenly blue 
Falls as SQftly as the dew, 
Or above me in the cloud 
Singeth with the lark aloud ; 
More and more is given to me 
As I learn to hear and see. 
And the larger joy and store 
As I learn to love the more 
Every gift, and yet would share 
What hath most of sweet and rare, 
And be only richer still 
For the largeness of my will. 



OWNERSHIP. 229 

Let my neighbor keep in trim 

Park and lawn — Why envy him? 

Wherefore not rejoice that he 

Service rendereth unto me, 

If his work and worth become 

Part of me, and add their sum 

To the wealth and joy I find 

Stored and centred in the mind. 
20 



230 UNTO THE HOURS OF DUSK. 



UNTO THE HOURS OF DUSK. 

TTNTO the hours of dusk belong 
^^ The sweetest utterances of song. 
The lark, at dawning, heavenward wings 
His happy flight and soaring sings. 

And when the evening shadows fall, 
The most melodious bird of all 
Sings on alone. Thus dawn and dark 
Are cheered by nightingale and lark. 



ASPIRATION. 231 



ASPIRATIOK 

"ITTE plan and purpose grandly, dreaming dreams 

Which dwarf achievement ; and our large desires 
Reach to the Possible. Our fancy teems 
"With shapes beyond our grasp. The soul aspires • 
Upward and on, and will not stay content 
With present state or treasure. It hath such 
A vast ambition, so divine a touch 
And trace of its far source, though housed and pent 
In narrow limit, that it may not rest 
At any station. We are only blest 
In movement, aspiration, life, and growth. 
And in our weakness thus we gather force. 
And shake off drowsiness, and rouse from sloth, 
Drawn, stirred, and quickened, in the changeful course 
That lies between the bounds of birth and death. 

Thus it is well to spend our mortal breath. 
Narrowing the gap that widely separates 
Knowledge from action, duty from the deed, 



232 ASPIRATION. 

Bridging the awful chasm between the states 
Conceived and actual, sowing precious seed 
Whereof we may not see the flower or fruit, 
Save by prophetic vision and large hope. 
And from this lowly stand-point, finding scope 
For what is god-like in us. Blind and mute, 
Gross and unworthy are those dreary lives 
That wake not into vision and to song, 
Amid the beauty and the choral throng 
Of wonders round them, and that feel no need 
Beyond brute wants, and are content to feed 
On husks and draff. But he who greatly strives 
After the light and harmony divine. 
Although he fail to reach it, and attain 
To no serene contentment for his pain, 
Labor, and waiting, yet at last shall rest 
Cleared of all baseness, and shall sing and shine 
Sweeter and brighter, and shall be more blest, 
Even in failure, sorrow, toil, defeat. 
Than those who never feel how incomplete 
Our life and work is, measured at its best. 



N WA R D. 233 



ONWARD. 

rriHE Present may not hold us, nor the Past, 

Though stored in memory, garnered up in books, 
Sculptured in stone, or builded strong and vast. 
Or fixed in colors that entrance the sight. 
Or voiced to music. Like the babbling brooks 
Forward we press ; nor can the mountain -height 
Whence we have fallen, nor the blooming plain 
Cause us to linger. Toward the boundless main 
We move through all the curves to left and right, 
To find our current but a drop of rain 
Lost in the Ocean. Wliere the Future lies 
Clouded and dim, but lit with rainbow-dyes 
Of Hope's illusions, thither we press on 
To meet the Unknown and suflTer change of state. 
The night has vanished ; mists of early dawn 
Have thinned to air ; but evening's glories wait 
To round the day and bring again the night. 
With rest and silence, dreams and starry light. 
20* 



234 N WA R D. 

With rest and darkness full of dreamy ease : 
With silence, said I ? Lo, the nightingale 
Finds then the happiest hour of all to please 
His wakeful mate, and fill the listening vale 
With music such as loud and busy day 
Had not the soul to hear. The steadfast stars 
Keep watch and ward with many-twinkling ray. • 
The star of Love is there, and fiery Mars 
Pours through the blue his red and murky gleam. 
'T is Kest, not Death. The pulse of nature stirs, 
And night no less than fretful day is hers. 
Anchored by distance, fixed and stable seem 
The throbbing lights which closer vision shows 
To find in ceaseless movement their repose. 
Motion and life bring change of state and form : 
The calm is gathering forces for the storm, 
And silence breeds the thunder that shall shake 
The very hill-tops. All the azure vault 
Wheels round, nor suffers momentary halt, 
And brings again the dewy lights that break 
Along the East, when, heralding the sun, 
The clouds grow bright and show the day begun. 



PALEONTOLOGICAL. 235 



PALEONTOLOGICAL. 

TN ancient days of fire and flood, 

Amid the dusk and dawn of Time, 
What monsters wallowed in the mud, 

And sprawled and crawled among the slime ! 

What teeth and tusks and ravenous jaws. 
Sepulchral throats to growl and howl. 

And things with leathern wings and claws. 
Huge bat-like cross of beast and fowl! 

What demon eyes to flash and glare 

From jungle reeking in the sun. 
And horny beaks to pierce and tear. 

And hideous legs to glide and run! 

Vast, horrid shapes to fly and swim. 
Reptiles to writhe and coil and creep, 

And mouths to crunch the forest- limb, 
And fins to lash to foam the deep; 



236 PALEONTOLOGICAL. 

Gigantic, uncouth, hybrid forms. 

To clutch and rend, to gorge and die, 

Filled all the seething land in swarms. 
And flapped their shadows from the sky. 

Rough sketches of the things to be. 
Prime fashionings of the plastic clay, 

When air and earth were mixed with sea. 
And fog with fire, and night with day. 

As yet those sharper lines undrawn 

Which through the realms of nature run. 

These swam, crept, floundered through the dawn, 
Fish, lizard, serpent blent in one. 

Such was the earliest nest and brood ; 

Tornado, flood, volcanic stream. 
And shapes to match, strange, huge, and rude, 

AVhen Nature first began the dream 

Of Life and Growth. But these have gone, 
They now are crumbled into dust, 

Or left in imprint on the stone, 
Or buried underneath the crust 



PALEONTOLOGICAL. . 237 

Of countless Ages. And we find 

Tooth, plate, shell, bone, organic trace, 

As all that now is left behind 

Of myriad forms which once had place 

And rioted amid the gloom 

Of swamp and thicket. It remains 

To reconstruct what we exhume 

From hill-sides, valleys, mountains, plains ; 

While beauty, joy, intelligence, 

Now strike their roots and bud and blov/. 
And charm the soul and wake the sense. 

Where tendrils clasp and gardens glow. 

This endless work remains for man. 

To traverse Time through all its reach. 

To thrid the mazes of the Plan* 

That binds together All with Each, 

And, founded on the rocks, doth run 
Through grade and rank of Being, till 

It leads to God, the Eternal One, 
And rests in Him as Mind and Will. 



238 PALEONTOLOOICAL. 

We touch not Origin the more 

By travelling back to fire and mist; 

The soul still asks what was before 
The dark by radiant dawn was kissed. 

What held and filled the void of Space, 
What gave the form to cooling spheres, 

What fixed the orbits in their place 
And led the circling march of Years? 

Mere ministers are Heat and Weight, 
With tireless might to run the round 

Of change on change from state to state. 
By Law themselves securely bound. 

Nor do we reach and grasp the End 
Of what in cyclic course is whirled. 

Save as we rise and upward tend 

Toward God as Maker of the World ; 

Toward God as Origin and Way, 

As Means and End, as Life and Light, 

Whose presence is the Eternal Day, 
Whose absence would be starless Night 



COME, FADING LIGHT. 239 



COME, FADING LIGHT. 



/^OME, fading light, come, starry night, 
^-^ Come, dreamy hours, so sweet and tender; 
Love cannot bear the dazzling glare 
Of sunshine and the golden splendor. 



But when each star gleams from afar, 
And opes and shuts its twinkling glory; 

When lights do sink and candles wink. 
Then Love grows bold to tell his story. 

The dusk and dim is the hour for him 
To breathe the vow and steal the kisses ; 

The dusk and hush will hide the blush 
And thrill with all the whispered blisses. 



240 THE PORCELAIN VASE. 



THE PORCELAIN VASE. 



A PORCELAIN Vase, while baking one day 
In the furnace of affliction, 
Would preach to the commoner sort of clay- 
Words of comfort and benediction : — 



"Ye Vessels and Shapes of dishonor and wrath, 
Be of cheer as the fire grows hotter ; 
Remember what power the soft clay hath 
In the shaping hands of the potter." 

But the Shapes replied, "O Porcelain Vase, 
Your words would be less like mockery, 

If preached with a less complacent face, 
By a plainer kind of crockery. 

"Told in another style and air. 

We might learn with some docility, 
From another sort of Earthen Ware, 
To be baked with due Humility." 



CONFESSION. 241 



CONFESSION. 

TT7H0LLY am I known to you; 

Every glance has read me through. 
Wherefore then need language tell 
What you know, alas! too well, 
How completely I am bound, 
Caught in meshes, tangled round 
With a web from which I would 
Not escape, e'en if I could. 
How far is he prisoner 
Who the thraldom doth prefer? 
How far serf or slave is he 
Who desires not to be free? 
Master am I now no more 
Of myself as I was before. 
Self-sufficiency is gone; 
Toward another self I 'm drawn. 
Must tend thither, must be there. 
No more, vital is the air 
21 Q ' 



242 CONFESSION. 

Breathed afar from where thou art. 
Pulses languish, and the heart 
Only hath a leaden pain 
Till thou comest near again. 
Presence life is, absence death; 
Thou to me the very breath 
Of my being, hast become, 
Centre, happiness, and home. 

AVhat there is in soul or sense, 
Most delicious, most intense, 
Past the utmost power of speech, 
Past imagination's reach. 
That thy nature is to mine. 
Sunlight, fragrance, dew-drops, wine, 
Music, breath of flowers, the dawn, 
Starlight when the day is gone. 
Part of every creature's best, 
And surpassing all the rest. 
Call this frenzy, call it love. 
Reason on it, clearly prove 
That 't is folly most insane, 
Yet the fact will still remain. 
And the store of happiness 
Never grow a whit the less. 



CONFESSION. 243 

Nay, you tell the folly o'er 
And its sweetness turns to more, 
Reasserts itself and grows 
From .the bud to the full-blown rose. 
Madness is it? Pray commend me 
Unto such disease, or end me: 
Better die, than to endure 
Pains and tortures of a cure. 



244 A SONG OF SPBINO. 



A SONG OF SPRING. 

rilHE light of Spring begins to fling 

Soft shadows, where the cloudlets pass; 
And music floats from warbling throats, 
And nests are thick in leaves and grass. 

When Morn awakes, the dewy brakes 
Are filled with ringing minstrelsy; 

And Evening goes to sweet repose, 

Drowsed by the song from dusky tree. 

The bobolink sings by the brink 
Of willowy brook that glides along; 

And the oriole gives forth his soul 
In sudden flash of flight and song. 

From topmost bough, the thrush pours now 
Full-throated song in gushing flood; 

And the meadow-lark shrills clear, and hark 
To the dove that flutes within the wood. 



A SONG OF SPRING. 245 

The chattering wren is back again ; 

The catbird mocks by the garden wall ; 
The robin fills the grove, and trills 

The earliest, loudest lay of all. 

"Why is the air pulsed everywhere 

By bird that flits and builds and sings: 
This song and rout, what is 't about. 

This gush of throats, and flash of wings ? " 

I asked: and then, by hill and glen, 
A hush came o'er the startled throng, 

Until the dove made answer, " Love, 

Love builds the nest and sings the song." 

Then, far and high through all the sky. 
The notes rose doubly sweet and loud, 

Till Echo heard each warbling bird, 

And passed the song from cloud to cloud. 

A light shot through the heaven of blue. 

The parted clouds grew warm and red ; 

A low breath shook the rippling brook, 

And something stirred my soul, and said, — 
21* 



246 A SONG OF SPUING. 

"Shall only voice of bird rejoice, 

And love and gladness fill the grove? 
Shall all the Spring thus love and sing, 
And I not sing my Song of Love ? " 



GUIDANCE. 247 



GUIDANCE. 

TJEFORE death snuffs our little taper out, 

^-^ We may inflame a torch whose light shall shine 

Down the long reach of years, and put to rout 

The powers of darkness. Is it not divine 

Thus to live on defying death and night ; 

Thus to make earth more beautiful and bright 

For having seen its loveliness, and gone 

To dust and darkness from the dew and dawn; 

Thus to be present and to find a voice 

Oblivion may not silence, nor the noise 

Or havoc smother? They feel least of death, 

Who, rounding life by death, still stir the breath 

Of all the throbbing present, and attend 

And guide the mighty movement toward an end 

That lies far in the future, and shall be 

Fresh starting-point for us so soon as we 

Shall touch the goal. Here do they still abide 

Present and helpful with us; by our side 



248 GUIDANCE. 

They come and take their station. More and more 
They leaders are, that they have gone before, 
And fathomed all there is of worst and best 
In Life and Death, the burden and the rest. 



n 



ON VIEWING A MUMMY. 249 



ON VIEWING A MUMMY. 

A H, Time and Death make sorry sport 
With Life and Glory. Pharaoh's court 
Must pass to mummy, and be hid 
By gloomy pomp of pyramid. 
Is this the end, do what we can. 
Of all the pride and state of man? 
Of Beauty shall there naught remain 
But shrivelled form and shrunken vein? 
Could thought and fancy once have filled 
That empty skull? Has passion thrilled 
The ghastly horror of those lips? 
What long and piteous eclipse 
Have joy and splendor undergone ! 
The dew and freshness of the dawn 
Are dust and ashes, and the light 
Has fallen down to starless night. 
Is this the flower, is this the bloom 
That pleases Death, and makes the tomb 



250 ON VIEWING A MUMMY. 

Perpetual guardian? Better pass 
Through air and mould to tree and grass, 
Around the circle, than remain 
A hideous presence, and in vain 
Attempt to check the atomic play- 
That holds the world within its sway. 



THE SUMMER IS OVER. 251 



THE SUMMER IS OVER. 

rriHE Summer is over; no bee haunts the clover, 
No bird blithely sings by his nest in the tree ; 
The honey is gathered ; the birdlings are feathered 
And flown far away, with the Seasons, from me. 

When Spring-time was budding, and sunlight came 
flooding. 

From the blue overhead, wood, meadow, and field. 
The bird was full-throated with song ; yet I noted 

That he did not forget to plan and to build. 

When Summer unfolded buds daintily moulded. 

And the warm light slept in the heart of the flowers, 

The bee was far wiser than to play the despiser 
Of Time, by not hiving the wealth of the hours. 

But I, foolish dreamer, idealist, schemer, 

Did nothing but dream while the Season slipt by ; 

Now when I grow sober, behold, 't is October, 
And the bird and the bee have been wiser than I. 



252 BENEATH THE STEEPLE'S DIZZY HEIGHT. 



BENEATH THE STEEPLE'S DIZZY 
HEIGHT. 

"HENEATH the Steeple's dizzy height 
"^""^ I enter, where the day is dim 

With soft and many-colored light, 
And voices chant the choral hymn. 

Upon the floor the sunshine lies, 
Of rainbow-hues a broken mass, 

From where it pours a thousand dyes 
Through windows rich with tinted glass. 

The walls uplift the chiselled stone. 
The arches rise in airy grace, 

The organ sends its mellow tone 

Through all the stillness of the place. 

The tablets bear a sacred Name ; 

I hear the solemn words that fall 
From Holy Book, of One who came 

To live and die for each and all. 



BENEATH THE STEEPLE'S DIZZY HEIGHT. 253 

Thus through the avenues of sense, 
± strive to lift my soul to Thee, 
Who art the only Fountain whence 

All flows that is, or is to be. 

But ah, how dull the outward ear, 
The vision of the eye how blind ! 

I fail to see and feel Thee near. 

Who must be worshipped by the mind. 

The soul sincere, the lowly heart 

Alone, O God, to Thee draws nigh. 
Without a single help of Art, 

Or other music than a sigh. 

22 



254 NAUGHT RESTS AS IN AN END. 



NAUGHT RESTS AS IN AN END. 

nvr AUGHT rests as in an End. All forward presses 
-^^ From Life to Death, from Death to Life again. 
The buds, wherein the Spring her joy expresses, 
Pass on to fruit, till Winter comes, and then 
All seemeth done; yet warmly wrapped beneath 
Encircling folds and hidden by their sheath 
Sleep next Year's blossoms, and await their time. 
Day follows night, and night doth chase the day ; 
We touch a goal and yet we make no stay, 
But onward, upward must we ever climb. 
Kest is for labor, sleep to gather might, 
The darkness used prepares us for the light, 
Discord resolved gives harmony more sweet. 
And Silence, duly set, doth make the Song complete. 



THE ROSE-BUD. 255 



THE KOSE-BUD. 

T OVE once crept within a bud 

On a rose-bush growing, 
While, near by, a maiden stood, 
Fairer, sweeter, glowing. 

Quoth the maiden, "I will clip 

This exquisite beauty. 
Ere the bee has chance to slip 

In and take his booty." 

Saying thus, the bud she took. 

She, a lovelier blossom. 
And she dropt it, as she spoke, 

Deep within her bosom. 

Did Love stay tucked up and prim? 

Think you cunning Cupid, 
After all you've heard of him. 

Could have been so stupid ? 



256 THE ROSE-BUD. 

Quoth tlie maiden, " Lack-a-day ! " 
Out the rose-bud flinging, 

" 'T is no naughty bee, I pray, 
That shall end by stinging." 

But for all that she could do, 
Sighs or tears or laughter. 

Something pleased, but smarted too, 
Many a day thereafter. 



SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 257 



SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 

TTTHAT bravery there is in Man, and what far- 
reaching hope, 

Desires that nothing can defeat, and aims beyond the 
scope 

And reach of accident or death, and plans whose pur- 
pose lies 

Above the topmost heights of earth and touches on 
the skies. 

And yet, how fragile, brief, and weak ; scarce hath he 
leave to run 

A score of circles, with the year, around the isteadfast 
sun. 

The morning dew, the evening cloud, the glory of the 
flower. 

The grass that feels the mower's scythe and dies the 
self-same hour ; 

These are the types of transciency, the symbols that 
befit 

The narrow span of human life, and all enclosed by it. 
22 * 11 



258 so NO OF THE CENTURIES. 

Tribes disappear, and nations pass, in dim procession, 

down 
The vista of the historic page, and dust and ashes crown 
The splendor of the olden Past ; the broken shaft and 

arch V 

But signalize the temple's pride and the triumphal 

march. 
And perched upon the lofty crag, the ruined castle 

stands. 
And cities whelmed in lava lie, or hid beneath the sands. 
Where hath the mighty monarch gone, with all his 

courtly train? 
Have pomp and state and mxarshalled hosts been utterly 

in vain? 
Doth Ruin wait for all that dwells and shines beneath 

the sun? 
The glory of a thousand years, must it be all undone ? 
The hundred-gated Thebes has fallen, and where Pal- 
myra stood. 
The owlet hoots and breeds her young in the pillared 

solitude. 
The site may now be scarcely found, where Ninus had 

his throne. 
And Babylon and Persepolis in all their glory shone. 



SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 259 

The builder hath no skill to build, 't is not in stone or 

brass 
To stand the envious touch of time ; the Ages slowly 

pass, 
And bear the works of man away, nor leave at last a 

trace 
Of k\\ the show and circumstance that filled the highest 

place. 
What though the Desert howl where once the mar- 
ket's busy hum 
Was heard through all the crowded streets ; what though 

the sounds be dumb 
Of mirth and song on Festal days, and silent pilgrim 

find 
But shattered fragments of the things the Past hath 

left behind: 
All has not changed nor dw^arfed nor died ; all is not 

dust, and blown 
By the blinding winds, but stands and lives and is the 

greater grown. 
The Present feels a fuller life and draws a larger 

breath. 
Because it strikes a deeper root within the realms of 

Death. 



260 SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 

New cities rise instead of those that crumble and decay ; 
New Institutions shape the world, as others pass away ; 
New forms of Thought and Life and Power, transcend- 
ing far the old, 
Come forth to sway the Centuries ; then pass to dust 

and mould. 
But not till they have left a seed, do they become the 

soil 
From which a richer harvest springs, wdth less of human 

toil. 
Thus rise we far above the wrecks that Time and 

Change repeat ; 
Thus triumph over accident, and thus ignore defeat. 
The fair illusion never dies : Hope lives ; and every 

dawn 
Fills all the East as fresh and full as in the ages 

gone. 
We sing the joyous song of Youth ; the world is ever 

young ; 
As bright a sun is in the sky as ancient Homer sung. 
Three thousand years of storm and cloud have failed 

to dim a ray ; 
And he shall shine, for thousands more, as brightly as 

to-day. 



SONG OF TEE CENTURIES. 261 

And, still, above the crash of Troy, is Homer's music 

heard ; 
By that immortal flow of song the present hour is 

stirred ; 
Nor will the coming days consent to lose a single strain. 
But read with rapture every note, again and yet again. 
No sweeter flowers were in the field, nor buds upon the 

bough. 
In the Golden Years of which we dream, than show 

their beauty now; 
No happier pulses stirred the blood, in all the Olden 

Time, 
Than throb within the breasts of those who now are in 

their prime. 
Let mosses creep upon the wall and ivy climb the tower ; 
Let Kuin mark the ancient seats of worldly Pomp and 

Power ; 
Let helmet, shield, and coat of mail be eaten by the 

rust ; 
Let antiquary grope his way among historic dust ; — 
A wholesome reverence for the Old, a sense of every 

Grace 
That shines and lingers round the Past, and lights the 

marble face 



262 SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 

Of Death itself, shall not withdraw my heart from all 

that moves 
And breathes, and fills the present Hour, and works 

and hopes and loves. 
Be mine the heart that still is young, though Time be 

old and gray ; 
Be mine the Faith in Man, that years shall fail to drift 

away. 
The central points of worldly power, through ages, 

shift their seat. 
With shock of races, waste, and war, and triumph, and 

defeat. 
Nations are born and live and die ; Kingdoms arise 

and fall ; 
The mighty flood of Time sweeps on, and bears them 

one and all 
Upon its restless waves. But he who watches well the 

flow 
Fails not to see the onward course, although the cur- 
rents show 
An eddying whirl along the banks and where the 

channel bends. 
And man is swiftly borne around to new and better 

ends. 



SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 263 

When Serfdom dies, when Slavery falls, there is a deaf- 
ening roar. 

As when Niagara thunders down and shakes the rocky- 
shore. 

To calm his torrent in the lake, and shape his course, 
and be 

A larger river, flowing on to meet the engulfing 
sea. 
Through smoke and flash and clouded lights, what 
shadows go and come. 

With shout and shriek of battle-field, with trumpet, 
sword, and drum ! 

The cannonade, the bursting shell, the din and clash of 
War, 

Have sounded through the Centuries, and left their 
gash and scar 

Across the brow and front of Time; and men and 
nations show 

With what relentless force they dealt the swift and 
staggering blow 

That hurled each other from the height and chiefest 
seat of power. 

And wrought the ruin of an age, within a frenzied 
hour. 



264 SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 

Behold the siege and sack of towns ! Are those the 

deeds* of men, 
Or demons stung with rage and loosed from some 

infernal den, 
When lust and madness stalk abroad, and murder's 

arm is bared 
To drain the very dregs of life, that fire and' famine 

spared. 
At morn the fields were fresh and fair, the sky was 

cloudless blue ; 
The river poured its azure vein of light and music 

through 
The smiling landscape. Evening came ; the fields were 

ploughed with shot. 
The harvest lay a trampled waste, the sky was red and 

hot 
With clouds of smoke and lurid glare, the river ran 

with blood ; 
And who would know the pleasant spot whereon the 

town had stood ? 
By the Euphrates, and the ban>ks where the Tigris 

pours his stream. 
The Bace awoke ; the world began ; it was the morning 

dream 



SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 265 

Of Earth and Man. Then, by the Nile, that cleaves 

its fertile course • 

Between the deserts. Wisdom lived, and gathered head 

and force. 
Till, issuing forth, the Hebrew saw the smoking Moun- 
tain Peak, 
And Conscience heard the voice of God from out the 

darkness speak. 
Then Beauty came awhile to dwell by the thousand 

rills of Greece; 
And Strength, beside the Tiber's wave, built palaces of 

Ease, 
And grew corrupt through luxury; when, like the 

Danube's flood, 
Barbaric hordes came pouring down, and would have 

swept the good 
And bad commixed from off" the Earth, had Nature 

not decreed 
To right and worth, new place of growth and an 

immortal seed. 
From out the humming Northern hive, the Vandal, 

Goth, and Hun, 
Came swarming fast to fill the lands whereon a genial 

sun 
23 



266 SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 

Had scattered flowers and ripened grains, and where 

his lustre fell 
On chiselled shaft and rounded dome and tower and 

citadel. 
And Rome, that gave her wise decrees, and held her 

ready sword 
Above the necks of countless Kings, and made her 

slightest word 
The law and rule to savage Might, at last, must feel 

the ills 
That Time and Change know how to work ; and from 

her" Seven Hills, 
The sceptre of the World was gone. If such a doom 

could wait 
The Queen among the Nations, who may hope for 

other fate? 
Then, from the Desert's burning sands, a cloud of 

locusts blew 
Across the sea, and Arab might was felt in Spain, and 

grew 
To such a pitch, that not content, the Pyrenees were 

passed, 
And Europe, at the sudden sight, a moment stood 

aghast. 



SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 267 

Theu Sword was clashed with Scimetar, the Crescent 
with the Cross ; 

It seemed as if the World was staked upon the gain 
or loss 

Of battle-field. 'T was which shall rule, the Turban 
or the Crown ? 

Shall Christian might recoil and fall, or Islam tumble 
down? 

When, gathering all his heart and strength, the arm of 
Charles Martel 

Struck, in the field of Tours, a blow, and smote so hard 
and well, 

That Arab power went reeling back and sank upon the 
ground. 

And, with the e«ho of the stroke, the Ages still re- 
sound. 
Where old Byzantium had stood new domes began 
to shine. 

And on the Bosphorus was built the pride of Constan- 
tino ; 

And Law and Learning found a seat and refuge there, 
and dwelt 

Until the Moslem came again and made his presence 
felt 



268 SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 

* 

Through shuddering Christendom, and such a Southern 

storm broke forth 
As threatened Europe more than all the fury of the 

North. 
Then rose the Turk to hold the East. The pilgrim's 

Sacred Shrine 
Was in the hands of infidels. Awake — for Palestine! 
The world resounds, and every heart is stirred, and 

nations rise 
For rescue of the Sepulchre ; the number multiplies 
Until the vast processioji pours a European host 
Upon the shores of Asia, and fills the thronging coast. 
The crowded ranks for Centuries keep surging to and fro ; 
Kings, nobles, warriors, pilgrims, priests, make up the 

motley show. 
The lines of march are white with bones that bleach in 

wind and sun. 
Of those who perished by the way ; and fields are lost 

and won. 
Besieged and held is Antioch ; the Sepulchre is free ; 
The Sultan flies at Ascalon, there's shout and victory 
Of stubborn hearts where Acre stands ; yet gone is all 

the gain : 
The toil and blood of Christian hosts are utterly in vain. 



SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 269 

And still the Turk new conquest makes ; the Eastern 

Empire falls ; 
And smiting boldly at the gates that guard Vienna's 

walls, 
He finds at last a sudden check ; away fly horse and 

man, 
And Sobieski ends the work that Charles Martel 

began. 
Out breaks the Age of Chivalry. 'T is Honor's 

glittering spark 
That shines the brighter, now that all the world beside 

is dark. 
'T is Love and Gallantry that rule. With Knight and 

Lady fair. 
With tilt at Joust and Tournament, what stir of life is 

there ! 
The Warrior keeps a holiday, and he would fain 

rehearse. 
In brilliant show, the bloody field, its triumph and 

reverse. 
He trains and decks himself for strife, as for a thing 

of sport. 
And wages mimic war amidst the splendor of a court. 

23* 



270 SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 

With coat of mail and sword and lance, with helmet, 

mace, and shield. 
The horseman rides from land to land, in search of 

every field 
To prove his prowess, and make good, by force of arms, 

his word. 
That she is best, for whom he fights, and Queen to be 

adored. 
When Beauty gazes on the throng, what need of other 

light? 
Love throbs in many a tender heart, and Valor spurs 

the Knight ; 
The banners flaunt ; the pennons stream ; it is a goodly 

show; 
The Herald blows his trumpet loud; each breath is 

hushed and low; 
The Champions are in the lists ; the field is Cloth of 

Gold; 
They dash, they crash, the lance is broke, and one is 

hurled and rolled 
With headlong force upon the ground ; and he who 

wins the pi'ize 
Hath more than Kingdoms in the light that shinos 

from Woman's eyes. 



SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 271 

Next, Venice rose from out the sea, and by her hun- 
dred isles 
The wings of Traffic spread themselves for flights of 

many miles ; 
Until they grew so strong and bold, that from the 

shores of Spain, 
They ventured forth upon the deep and crossed the 

Atlantic Main, 
To find New Worlds, and round the globe, and make 

the map complete, 
And bring the wealth of continents in tribute to the 

feet 
Of Spanish pride and indolence. Then Holland built, 

and drew 
Her wall of dikes to fence the land, and quickly rose 

and grew" 
To rank and power, by Indian spice and trophy of the 

Seas ; 
Till Wealth and Time brought on again the fatal old 

disease 
That hurts the nations. England, last, began to lead 

and rise, 
And send her ships to all the world, and fight and 

colonize ; 



272 SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 

Until, beside the banks of Thames, the seat of power 

to-day 
Is fixed, that has the strongest hold and farthest-reaching 

sway. 
But shall that centre be unmoved, or shall the Ages 

draw 
The Mastery from London's life, as by the Historic Law 
Of change in all that w^ent before ? May not the wise 

foresee 
The limit Nature puts upon the power and high degree 
Of British Might, that nears each* day the inevitable 

goal ? 
The strength of England rests upon her wasting beds 

of coal. 
These gone, she steps aside and quits the chief and 

foremost place; 
And then another Nation comes to lead the onward 

race 
Of swift events that now^ transpire by telegraph and 

steam, 
And rival in their rapid change the old Arabian dream 
Of talisman and magic power. Beside the Hudson 

stands 
A city that one day shall be the foremost in the Lands. 



SONG OF THE CENTURIES. 273 

And where the Mississippi builds its delta in the sea, 
And the Columbia pours its flood, a nation there shall 

be, 
Whose rank shall hold the highest place, whose influence 

stretch most wide. 
Heaven grant that when that day shall come, no hist 

of power or pride 
May make us strong to do the wrong ; but may we hold 

our trust 
Of God, and lead the nations forth till we, too, pass to 

dust. 



274 THE PACHA OF THREE TAILS. 



THE PACHA OF THREE TAILS. 



"ITTHEN the mighty Pacha rides by, 

With his three-tailed badge of station, 
'T is an emblem, I take it, to signify 

That he and his drowsy Nation, 
In the March of Man, do occupy 

The fag-end of Civilization. 



G 0, HA PP V AJi TIS T. 275 



GO, HAPPY ARTIST. 

r^ O, happy Artist, rave your fill about the Picturesque, 
^-^ The Greciau, Roman, Gothic styles, Chinese and 

Arabesque, 
Cathedrals, castles on the Rhine, pagodas, ruins, 

towers, 
Canals of Venice, palaces, rocks, water, trees, and 

flowers. 
Be mine the lot that holds a Block on some substantial 

street, 
Where business brings the highest rents, and throngs 

of merchants meet ; 
Give me the solid Quarter-Days of my Estate called 

Real, 
And you may draw the net proceeds of your Estate 

Ideal. 



276 ALTHOUGH NO ACT. 



ALTHOUGH NO ACT. 

4 LTHOUGH no act of yours be strong 
-^■*- To grace or blot the historic page, 
Although no word of deathless song 
May pass your name from age to age ; 

Yet plant a flower or pluck a weed 
Beside Life's way, and who shall tell 

What growth may follow from the seed 
Of simple, silent Doing Well? 



PATIENCE. 211 



PATIENCE. 

T" ET Science fail to count the lapse of Time 
-■-^ While Mist of Fire condensed to ring and sphere, 
The yearless epochs, ere the march sublime 
Of suns and planets made the Days appear 
And the swift Seasons. Let her fail to tell 
How long it went to floor the mighty sea, 
To lift the mountains, and to harden well 
The ribs of rock, and store the leaf and tree 
Beneath the hills. Such failure teaches me 
God's marvellous Patience. What a breath might bring 
Upon the instant forth, how slowly He 
Proceeds to fashion ! He awaits the thing 
That myriad ages hence shall come to be 
By His exhaustless power, nor hastes to show 
The End of All. Henceforward let me grow 
Serenely patient, waiting God's own way 
And rate of motion. ^ Wisest this and best, 
Neither to pause, nor fret at long delay. 
But to the pulsing of the Almighty's breast 
Commit myself, and work and wait and rest. 
24 



278 VAIN IS THE GLORY. 



VAIN IS THE GLORY. 

TTAIN is the glory of our best estate ; 

' Men, nations, empires waste and pass away. 
To each, to all there draweth on the date 

That marks swift overthrow or slow decay. 
Awhile the ruins stand to mock our pride. 

The inscription fades from out the wasting stone, 
And empty tombs, by hill and mountain-side. 

Are the last trace of builders. Years make known 
How all the Earth is washed by Lethe's wave, 

Creeping at first, then cresting to a flood. 
So that there stands no work or name or grave 

To show the spot where Strength and Beauty stood. 
Whatever lives and breathes this mortal breath 
Doth only move and grow toward dust and death. 



COMFORT. 279 



COMFOKT. 

"VrOT from the waste and general wreck of Time, 
-^^ By which the mightiest go down to dust ; 
Not from the seeds that flourish in the clime 

Where Death is richest in his mould and must, 
Do I gain Comfort. Wherefore all this change? 

Birth, Growth, Decay, Oblivion, and the round 
Of ceaseless Kepetition ? Wherefore range 

And whirl the planets in the blue profound, 
Bringing the Seasons and the Months and Days ? 

Time answers not, nor does the unclouded sun 
Throw light to solve it. But beyond the maze 

Of starry dance, and where the Years are done. 
Thence comes a gleam of comfort, as I look 
Down the far vista of the Holy Book. 



280 SONG OF THE SUNBEAM. 



SONG OF THE SUNBEAM. 

T71R0M many a million of miles away, 
-"- I come, and the flying Night is gone; 
In the East I open the gates of Day, 
And waken the rosy-fingered Dawn. 

I glow in the tip of the April-buds, 

I unfurl the leaf and fashion the flower ; 

I hang my banner of green in the woods, 
And my scarf of light by the garden-bower. 

In the cataract's spray I bathe and flash, 
I break into color above the storm. 

And the sky is bright with the rainbow-sash 
That I wear, in the cloud, about my form. 

I glint on the side of the snowy scarp. 
And I stir the glacier's sluggish flow ; 

I show the mountain-peak bald and sharp. 
And I fill the vale with a golden glow. 



SONG OF THE SUNBEAM. 281 

I tarry above tlie seeds and the roots 

Till the germ grows warm, and a sudden thrill 

Shatters the husk, and the tendril shoots, 

And the flower that thirsts for me drinks its fill. 

With many a streak, the tulip I stain, 

I spot the pansy wherever I list; 
I tinge the apple, I brown the grain. 

And I veil the grape in a purple mist. 

I gaze in the depths of the tranquil lake, 
I quiver and glimmer by ripple and wave ; 

I whiten the foam where the breakers break. 
And smile when the storm hath ceased to rave. 

I blaze in the gem from the darkling mine, 
Till the diamond is flame and the opal a spark ; 

In the clouds of the Evening I linger and shine. 
Till the West is aglow as I curtain the dark. 

The mists of the Morning I fringe with fire, 

I kindle a warmth in the drops of dew ; 

I gleam from the top of village-spire, 

And the Cross shines clear from the depths of blue. 
24* 



28^ SONG OF THE SUNBEAM. . 

I creep where the shadows fall on the green; 

By the dial I fashion, the hours are told ; 
Where the branches are woven I slip between, 

And I checker the sward with bars of gold. 

I slant o'er the wastes of Polar snow, 

In the Tropics I make my splendor known ; 

As I slope on the Earth, and come and go, 
I chase the Seasons from zone to zone. 

Swift fly the Hours, the Days, the Years, 
I speed their wings, I measure their flight ; 

Round the Past, that I quit, with its dust and tears, 
I fling a halo of tenderest light. 

By wilderness, desert, and river, and town, 
Over sand, over sea, field, forest, and lawn, 

Where mountain uprises and torrent leaps down. 
Where wing hath not soared and foot never hath gone, 

I wander unwearied, I brighten each spot. 
Be it ruin or temple or tower or grave ; 

I enter alike the palace and cot. 

And quicken the pulse of the king and the slave. 



SONG OF THE SUNBEAM. 283 

I nestle and hide in the tresses of hair, 
I lurk in the dimple on Beauty's cheek, 

And O, from the lips that are rosy and rare, 
I steal what the Lover in vain may seek. 

I pause but a moment, my duty is done; 

Transformed into Life, I perish as Light ; 
Swift follow fresh waves, and the throb of -the sun 

Renews me forever, and chases the Night. 



284 SHA KESPEA R E. 



SHAKESPEAKE. 

TTl WAS in the happiest season of the year, 

-^ When opening buds showed May-day to be near, 
And all was hope and promise, and the Spring, 
Breathing toward Summer, wakened every thing 
To life and song, and over hill and dale 
Came the first warblings of the nightingale, 
In merry England, centuries ago, 
A child was born, by Avon's tranquil flow. 
Whose voice hath taken earth with more delight 
Than nightingale the breathless hush of night. 
What heavenly sounds had birth, and then and there 
Shook with their pulses all tli' enraptured air; 
And as each gust and cadence rose and fell. 
With rippling stir or billowy dash and swell. 
That which before was dumb had found a voice. 
Astonished Silence heard and did rejoice 
To be so troubled, and to yield a place 
To the sweet breath and ever-varying grace 



SHAKESPEARE. ' 285 

Of song and harmony. What once was muto 

Passed into music softer than the lute, 

Louder than clarion, full as is the roar 

Of storm in forest, or as on the shore 

The waves make moaning, or as faint and small 

As leafy murmur or the muffled fall 

Of rain on roses ; and the listening ear 

Was ravished by the music sweet and clear. 

Song grew to be enchantment, and the stroke 

Of magic wand was rivalled. Man awoke 

To what was possible in human speech. 

To the charm of utterance within the reach 

Of finite voice, to the wondrous instrument 

Thought finds in language interfused and blent 

With its own essence. 

Shakespeare's searching ken 
Glanced through the realms of nature and of men, 
And caught and fixed, with such far reach of power, 
The form and spirit of the place and hour, 
That in the smallest deed and phrase appears 
Something which goes beyond the days and years, 
Something eternal, changeless as the laws 
Which govern change and bind effect to cause. 



286 SHAKESPEARE. 

A meaning we may find that far transcends 
The narrow circle where our knowledge ends, 
And grows with our enlargement, and still leaves 
Promise of harvest where the heaviest sheaves 
Were gathered in. His wisdom walks abreast 
With man's experience. State of worst and best 
He touches, and so marks that we make out 
The bounds which hedge our nature round about 
And end achievement. 'N^eath the motley wear, 
Beats human heart ; a weary load of care 
Burdens the crown. He has the skill to unlock 
Close-hidden secrets. Churchly cowl and frock 
Become translucent veils before his gaze. 
Vain are all cloaks and ceremonious ways 
To glance that reads and skill that can disclose 
Proteus beneath all masks. 

The picture shows 
None the less perfect that his brush doth paint 
Philosopher and fool, villain and saint. 
Done to the life, each lineament is there ; 
The canvas stirs, the many-sounding air 
Answers to parted lips. Each holds discourse 
In his own dialect. The subtle force 



SHAKESPEARE. 287 

Of blood, rank, office, education, age, 
Sex, circumstance, whatever powers engage, 
Collide, and clash to shape to complex play, 
Tragic or comic, which from day to day 
Transacts itself with laughter or vnth tears. 
Wherever man in the wide world appears ; — 
All these take part and act at his behest. 
The slightest waves tha,t stir the human breast, 
The fiercest storms, the most convulsive shocks 
When fatal passion breaks upon the rocks 
Which nature hath appointed, find their place 
In Shakespeare, as when ocean's changeful face 
Mirrors the heavens, or ruffles to the wind. 
Or thunders on the breakers. 

Every mind 
May match its varying humor ; every grade 
And style of man, profession, school, and trade 
May hear its inmost secret squarely told. 
The lover listens to the story old ; 
The merry clown disports himself at ease ; 
The dainty damsel finds the word to please ; 
Statesmen take counsel for the affairs of state, 
And courtiers learn the perils that await 



288 SHAKESPEARE. 

On fickle fortune. Mines of richest ore 
Scholars may work for aye, and gather more 
And more of precious treasure. Every test 
Of time, fire, crucible, but shows the best 
And most enduring worth ; and none may say 
That he has carried all the wealth away, 
Which runs in hidden veins down to the heart 
Of the ribb'd Earth, or grain-like lies apart 
Where fairies dance upon the sands of gold 
And all the waves make music. Years have rolled 
Tributes of wisdom underneath the flood. 
The form and fashion of the time, that stood 
Its season, soon or late hath ceased to rule ; 
But Shakespeare sends the world itself to school, 
And holds us students of his wondrous page 
When Manhood's prime hath turned to hoary age. 
For he knows all, how clear, how passing well ! 
His the quick eye to see, the tongue to tell, 
The fine imagination that can gain 
The point of vision, sought for else in vain, 
Whence all is viewed in order and appears 
As from the sun the whirling march of spheres. 
In him is largest sympathy to feel 
Whatever stirs, shakes, shatters ; wo and weal, 



SHAKESPEARE. 289 

Ambition, love, hate, jealousy, deceit, 

The wreck of reason partial or complete, 

Crime callous grown, suspicion's dismal lair, 

The nascent sin, the anguish of despair. 

Are so portrayed that every phrase doth catch 

The form and color and the word to match 

With inmost thought and feeling. There we find 

The secret ties that interlace and bind 

Body with soul, and how the state of each 

Acts on the other. He hath skill to reach, 

By gait and gesture, look and tone, below 

The outer surface, and to mark and show 

The signs and badges of the world that lies 

Deepest within and shut from other eyes. 

Conduct reveals the hidden character, 

We catch emotion in its earliest stir. 

In passive drift, in action strong and clear, 

Or in vague aim ; we seem, at times, to hear 

The soul at high debate when balancing 

This thought with that, and poising on the wing, 

Uncertain tow^ard what end shall be its flight, 

Goodness or ill, the darkness or the light. 

The line is his, and plummet that can sound 
The swiftest floods and gulfs the most profound ; 
25 T 



290 SHAKESPEARE. 

His too the measure that can. reach the top 
Where granite-dejDths in mountain-peaks out-crop, 
And where the stream of molten lava shows 
The hidden fires on which the rocks repose. 
He knows our nature in its subtlest part, 
The dreaming head, the throb of troubled heart, 
The loftiest aspirations, and the play 
Of grosser promptings from the baser clay 
Whereof we are compounded. Not a root 
Delves in the darkness, not a bud doth shoot 
Forth from its sheathing on the topmost bough, 
But he hath marked its course and tells us how 
Its form and function serve the general good, 
Unfold to fruit or twist to knotted wood. 
Or stir the sap and lift the leafy crown 
Fairer and fuller. As the roots strike down 
Toward pits of horror and the nether fire, 
They bear the branches broader still and higher, 
And sunshine ripens, into flower and fruit, 
A beauty and a use that have their root 
In strange contortions and a twining might, 
That knit the bloom to sunken realms of night. 

All grades and shades of character he draws. 
Discerns its growth, sets clearly forth its laws, 



SHAKESPEARE. 291 

The far impulses and the secret springs 

Whence conduct flows. Unto the depth of things 

And the steep height he doth descend and rise; 

Knows the Avorld's centre, reads the starry skies ; 

Shows accident, caprice, fortune, and fate, 

The play of each, the individual trait 

Grafted and growing on the common stock 

Of human nature. Not a lumpish block 

Or figure of convention takes its place 

Upon the stage, but men in whom we trace 

The personal life down to the smallest word. 

Each action rises, every pulse is stirred 

From real heart-throb ; an organic whole, 

Each moves not as a puppet but a soul. 

Behold the gallery which the finest skill 

Had time and industry enough to fill 

With pictures that no years shall cause to fade. 

See every color, every light and shade. 

The smile, the laugh, bright looks, and merry quips, 

Tears, groans, knit brows, sunk cheeks, and ashen lips, 

A thousand portraits, all so bravely done 

That it were vain to hope for any one 

To paint in language with a rarer skill ; 

Who hopes or wishes more, reads Shakespeare ill. 



292 SHAKESPEARE. 

Under the guidance of his finer sense, 
AVe overpass the bound of hedge and fence 
Fashioned of matter, and we enter where 
The spirit moves within a realm as rare 
As is its essence, and we there explore 
A world whereof we vaguely dreamed before. 
The tracts of fantasy and wild desire, 
Of drowsy revery, of storm and fire. 
Of most impalpable and airy things 
Finer than gossamer or the filmiest wings 
That must be heard, not seen, the thinnest shapes 
That form and vanish ; none of these escapes 
A touch and handling that reports for aye 
What melts to air or passeth swift away 
As it was born. Life, motion, passion, thought. 
Are present with us. Their efiTects are wrought 
Plainly before us, and we read the cause, 
In what it fashions by unvarying laws. 
We see the soil in which the seed is sown. 
Study the germ, the bud, the flower full-blown, 
Behold the perils of the early Spring, 
How frost may blight, the canker-worm may briug 
Ruin for beauty, how the mildew may 
Undo the bloom of many a happy day, 



SHAKESPEARE. 293, 

And how instead of ripeness there may fall 

Disease and death to make an end of all. 

The dainty blossom scarcely doth unlace 

Its beauty to the air and show its grace 

Of form and color, ere its sweetness draws 

The spoiler to it, and fierce ravage gnaws 

The honeyed texture. Read we, in the flower, 

What happens elsewhere every day and hour, 

And mars a growth whose precious beauty none 

With tearless eyes may gaze on, all undone. 

We learn to find the greater in the less, 

Deeds in their germs, the tendencies that press 

And urge us onward, latont powers that wait 

And mass themselves until there comes the date 

For strain, convulsion, crisis, and the play 

Of such Titanic struggle as shall sway 

The walls that close them and the ribs of rock, 

And break their prison in the earthquake-shock. 

In the swift syllables of many a line. 

What tracts are traversed, what recesses shine 

Lit by the splendor ! Never fell a ray 

Of sunshine into cavern, making day. 

And showing sparkle of the jewels there. 

Tangle of sea-weed, coral branching fair, 
9r» * 



294 SHAKESPEARE, 

Or else the slime and foulness, with a light 
Clearer than vvhen the beam serene and bright, 
Of Shakespeare's wisdom, strikes athwart the deep 
Where motives lurk and passions wake or sleep. 
Nay, as the miner with his pick and spade. 
Bearing his lamp, the darkness doth invade. 
Exploring night and gathering treasure stored 
Where mountains rose and ocean's depths were floored ; 
So Shakespeare digs and quarries and makes search, 
And bears about him the resplendent torch 
Of his own genius, and enriches man 
With knowledge hidden, bosomed in the plan 
And deep foundation the Creator laid 
When Earth was formed, and man himself was made. 
Out of the darkness, jewels rich and rare 
Come forth to shine and make the day more fair, 
Shatter the sunbeam, sphere themselves in flame. 
Show fiercer joy in light because they came 
From Stygian gloom, and sparkle far and blaze 
On Beauty's front, and set the world agaze. 

Of all degrees of man from king to clown, 
His music runs the diapason down, 
In chords of thunder, softly-warbling tones. 
Triumphal shouts, funereal wails and moans, 



SHAKESPEARE. 295 

Sighs, sobs, and laughter, and the grief that shows 

Most eloquent when anguish overthrows 

All power of utterance, and Silence fills 

The measure that would speak our outmost ills : 

And all so sweet, so full, and modulated so, 

That naught is left to wish for as we go 

Borne on the breath of harmony along, 

And charmed by Shakespeare's ever-changing song; 

Whose very freedom, playful grace, caprice, 

Loud burst, and sudden stop, and careless ease 

Show nature's method, and obey it still 

In rise and fall, full gust and faintest trill. 

Clear, sweet, distinct is every several tone, 

Yet not unmatched, nor moving on alone. 

But blent to harmony. All sounds that float 

From sea-beach, forest, wave, or warbling throat, 

The crash of thunder and the murmuring 

Of pebbly brooks, the buzz of insect's wing, 

The bay of hounds, loud shouts, the happy noise 

Of playful leisure. Echo's babbling voice, 

Wi.th discord used so skilfully that all 

Grows richer by the contrast, and doth fall 

To a more perfect silence; these we find, 

And sounds that pass the sense, and which the mind 



296 SHAKESPEARE. 

Alone may catch, too fine for grosser ears, 
The song of Ariel, music of the spheres. 
The breath of Fairies that is softer blown 
Than the gnat's hum or beetle's drowsy drone; 
Such sounds as these are caught and fixed in speech, 
Mingled, prolonged, and brought within our reach. 
Made common portion of us all to hear. 
Nor fly with seasons, but are always near. 

Each form and influence of the outward world, 
Sky, star, and cloud, crag, and the lightning hurled 
Out of the- tempest, breath of south-wind blown 
From bank of violets ; all of these are known, 
Felt, loved, and present in their proper j)lace. 
Landscapes are sketched wherein the wild-flower's face 
Shines on the beauty that it makes thrice fair. 
Castle with battlement, cliff* high in air. 
Wood, wilderness, lawn, garden, field appear ; 
The dawn and dew, all changes of the year, 
Day and the night, and hours that fly or lag 
As pleasures wing them or as sorrows drag ; 
These do their service, shift the scenes and give 
Environment to action, and they live 
By their suggestive might in heart and brain, 
Nourish our life, bring happiness or pain 



SHAKESPEARE. 297 

Unto the mood in which we chance to be. 
The world doth quicken us, and straightway we 
Inspire our breath in nature. By a stroke 
Of Shakespeare's magic wand the charm is broke 
That holds the Earth in silence. From her lips 
He takes the seal. No longer dim eclipse 
Shadows her visage. She makes bold to speak, 
Hath touch of joy and grief; flushes her cheek, 
Or pales its color as the varying train 
Of swift emotions follow ; bliss and pain 
Tremble and throb and fall away and rise ; 
Tree, rock, cloud, sunshine, feel and sympathize 
"With all we do or suffer. We infuse 
The tint of our own being in the hues 
Of what is round about us. Every tone 
Sounds in accord with that which makes its moan 
Sadly within us, or which shouts and breaks 
To peals of laughter when the heart awakes 
To joy and strength. What a full harmony 
Swells forth and modulates from key to key, 
Sweeps all the scale, pours out the mighty flood 
Now in the major, now the minor mood, 
Uses each stop, and makes our mother-tongue 
Melodious organ sounding far among 



298 SHAKESPEARE. 

The lands and ages, and with tone that thrills 
Nature and man, thronged cities and lone hills. 

Let Meditation Avalk the wildwood free. 
The running brooks will talk philosophy 
In Arden's forest. How the moon doth shine 
When Jessica makes all the heaven divine 
Unto Lorenzo! How the envious dawn 
For happy Romeo comes too swiftly on. 
And Juliet says the song heard in the dark 
Was of the nightingale and not the lark! 
Macbeth, with soul already stained by guilt 
Before the deed, would clutch the phantom hilt 
Of murder's instrument, and starts to find 
That he beholds a dagger of the mind. 
And on the blade and dudgeon gouts of blood. 
And she who stirred ambition to its flood, 
Nor paused at any form of crime that lay 
Athwart her path, rests not by night or day. 
Her tortured mind no couch of ease may hold. 
With eyes wide open, though the sight doth fold 
Itself in slumber, ghostlike, how she walks, 
And rubs her hands, and muttering strangely, talks! 
In balm and Lethe she no more may steep 
Her wearied sense, and babbling in her sleep, 



SHAKESPEARE. 299 

Must tell her fearful secret to the night. 

See jealousy arise and reach its height. 

When by his phrase lago's craft distils 

Slow poison in Othello's ear, and fills 

His mind with proof of Desdemona's shame 

By the lost hankerchief Ophelia's name 

Calls up what tears of pity ! Round the head 

Sweet flowers are bound, whence reason's light has fled. 

With her "pansies, that 's for thoughts," and "rue for 

you," 
And then " here 's some for me," what can we do 
But break to tears, while snatches of old tunes 
Are the swan's music, as her soul communes 
AVith a lost world and floats away to death. 
What words of wisdom troubled Hamlet saith, 
Mingled with folly feigned, as if he reels 
On the brink of madness: all too sharp he feels 
The countless ills to which our flesh is heir. 
When the clown's spade digs in the church-yard, 

where 
The soil too full with wrecks of death is sown, 
And to the light the empty skulls are thrown, 
What wit is found, so keen to moralize 
On man's estate and all that lives and dies? 



300 SHAKESPEARE. 

Out on the heath, behold the pitiless storm 

Break in its fury on the haggard form 

Of outraged Lear, the tempest of whose mind 

Rages more fiercely than the howling wind 

And the loud thunder. From each page we learn 

Meaning in hedge and highway, and discern 

Trim walk of order, wilderness of sweet, 

In place, appointment, office, all complete. 

What figures throng and move across the stage, 
Greeks, Komans, Britons, men of every age. 
Blood, and complexion ; men of various climes ; 
Christian and Moor and Jew. Far-distant times 
And lands are put to tribute. Here is shown 
What most is curious, worthy to be known. 
Mighty and glorious ; names of power and state. 
Whose will and voice were as the word of Fate, 
Strong to resolve, remorseless still to do, 
Achilles, Hector, Brutus, Caesar too. 
And Antony, and She with nerve to grasp, 
In fortune's bitter hour, the deadly asp. 
Long lines of kings in grand procession move, 
Fired by ambition, anger, lust, or love. 
The clang of arms rings out, steeds neigh and champ 
The sounding bit ; the hurry of the camp, 



SHAKESPEARE. 301 

Uproar of battle, and the din and rout 
Of flying foemen, and the victor's shout, 
Wake distant echoes, and the Past revives, 
Fleshes itself again and stirs and lives. 
Now in the palace stand we; now we meet 
At the Boar's Head Tavern; now the open street 
Receives us with the crowd; we haste away 
To wedding, funeral ; now are grave, now gay ; 
We touch the extremes that nature bids us reach. 
And learn the lessons found alone in each. 
Now talk with Death, and uow we gayly beat 
Time to the happy moments with our feet. 
And find that every minute, every place 
Hath act to suit of merriment or grace. 

Of prison and of mad-house every ward 
Disclosed some secret piteous or abhorred 
To Shakespeare's intuition. Hear the laugh 
And prate of folly. View the photograph 
Of sickness, sorrow, all that wrong or pain 
Stamp on the brow or write within the brain ; 
Open the volume, find on every leaf 
Some verbal sketch as life-like as 't is brief. 
Read there the signs and symptoms of disease: 
The face of death drawn by Hippocrates 
26 



302 SHAKESPEARE. 

Is not more faithful, closer to the fact 
Than what is writ of Falstaff's final act. 
Nor men alone, and grosser things that lie 
Apparent only to the outward eye, 
But all that feigning Fancy can create, 
Illusions of Disease, and shapes that wait 
To torture Guilt, fairies and ghosts appear. 
Monsters and airy forms distinct and clear 
As if his chisel knew to cut in mist 
As well as marble. Nothing can resist. 
That it shall not take shape and act its part. 
Substantial figures, phantom shades that start 
From brains of madmen, all are so expressed 
That what we gaze on last seems fashioned best, 
True to the life, whether the pulses beat 
With ruddy health or fever's fiery heat. 
Spirits of air are summoned by his pen ; 
Puck, Ariel, Oberon intermix with men. 
And in the woods, o'er-canopied with green, 
Titania holds her revels as a queen. 

What stands portrayed within how small a space ! 
The slightest touch hath left behind a trace 
Which Time may not obliterate. Can a breath 
Of shaken air outlive the lull of death. 



SHAKESPEARE. 303 

And stir the ages? Can a transient glance 

Pierce through and through, and fathom in advance 

The riddle of the Future? Can a touch, 

Hint, or suggestion, waken musings such 

As sleep may never drowse ? What magic lies 

In rod or crucible, that can surprise 

With half such wonder as when Shakespeare lays 

Life's mystery bare, and thrids the tangled maze 

Where Conscience wars with Passion, and where Doubt 

Palsies the Will, or Madness dashes out 

The form and beauty of the earth, and shows 

Its spectral world of hideous shapes and woes. 

Thus to the reach and compass of our thought. 

What far-off tracts and shadowy realms are brought 1 

The past is present and the distant near, 

Our life enlarged and earth a greater sphere. 

Because no more the bounds of time and space 

Do strictly prison us, but we embrace 

The vast- and vague, outstretching wide and far ; 

And more than what we have been, or we are, 

Is what we may be, or shall yet become. 

The Possible thus rounds the little sum 

Stored by the Actual, and achievement grows 

To larger measure with the hope that flows 



304 SHAKESPEARE. 

From fount perennial, and that waters still 
Broad plain, low valley, slope of mount and hill, 
Awakes the desert into bloom of sward 
And makes the wild a Garden of the Lord. 

Nature's spontaneous play, the power of Art 
To shape and train, the not less wondrous part 
Of climate, season, soil, whatever goes 
To hold and feed the hidden germ that grows 
Rooted within; the silent, subtle force 
Of Habit, by whose law the very course 
And current of our life are changed at last; 
Passion's light breath or fierce tornado-blast 
That carries sudden havoc in its path ; 
The growth of crime, until its being hath 
From first inception passed to final act ; 
All powers that are of heaven and earth compact. 
Celestial admonition, pure desire. 
The voice of conscience, earthly lust and fire, 
Whatever sheds its skyey influence round. 
Or shakes with strain and shock the solid ground ; — • 
These all in Shakespeare have their sway assigned. 
Upon the stage the Drama of Mankind 
Is set before us, and so truly versed 
That history there is summed up and rehearsed. 



SHAKESPEARE. 305 

We road the searching wisdom that detects, 
Latent in causes, their remote effects ; 
That shows conditions, elemental states, 
Transforming movements, varying drifts and rates, 
And tells the present what shall yet befall. 
And, by a few men, represents us all. 

For his was insight penetrant to read 
Thought, word, and action in their very seed. 
Birth, and awaking, and to trace the growth 
Of state from state ; and interlinking both 
Present and past with future, view as one 
The unvarying process which the ages run. 
The gift was his to see and then to tell 
What, looking inward, each discovereth well. 
And yet to make the plain disclosure seem 
A part of nature. Fancy's airiest dream, 
Life's hardest fact that cuts the soul as flint, 
Dim longing, swift desire, suggestive hint, 
Sweet influence, crushing force, whatever brings 
Rich gain or heavy loss, or soothes, or stings. 
Poisoning our life, rude shock and restless power 
That stir the years or vanish in an hour, 
Take here their station, act, and leave a trace 
Which time and ruin shall not all efface. 
26^ U 



306 SHAKESPEARE. 

Vague wish, suggestion faint, and purpose strong, 

Pass to performance. Then there comes the throng 

Of strange reactions, comfort full and sweet, 

Or mere disgust, unrest the more complete 

For hope thus foiled, or else the fearful force 

Of conscience ministering to keen remorse. 

All forms of good and ill we find within, 

Read what we are, see what we might have been. 

Discover self beneath each various guise, 

And learn with man, as man, to sympathize. 

No pomp of royalty, no glittering shows 
Can cheat his piercing vision or impose 
Their brave deceits. King, equally with clown, 
To human state and level must come down. 
Or be exalted. Not on lordly halls 
So sweet a rest and benediction falls 
As on the cottage. Vain are downy beds 
To pillow sloth. What aching hearts and heads 
Inhabit hollow splendor, and are bowed 
By cares and pains unknown to all the crowd 
Whose lives are simple. Bliss doth fly the courts 
For lightsome ease, brave work, or May-day sports. 
And leaving outward shows and fictions, asks 
To quicken hearts, not ceremonious masks. 



SHAKESPEARE. 307 

What place for envy in the soul is left, 
When those endowed by Fortune are bereft 
Of other wealth, and each allotment squares 
Some loss with gain, and may offset its cares 
With secret joys and compensations sweet? 
Although we bear the burden and the heat 
Of toil, and suffer buffeting and wrong, 
Yet labor knits the thews and makes us strong, 
And patience and forgiveness lift us up 
From lowliest vale to loftiest mountain-top. 

The language of the passions, Shakespeare knew : 
He caught their impress in the forms he drew. 
As swift emotions rise and whirl away. 
What rhythmic flow, w^hat chasmal leap and spray 
Fill all the channel of his changing verse! 
Now Love low murmurs as the waves make course 
With lingering fondness ; now the rocky shore 
Shakes and resounds with plunge and cataract-roar 
Of Hate and Fury; and anon the tide 
Grows to a lake outspreading far and wide. 
Within whose depths are imaged pictures rare 
Of earth around and the far fields of air. 
From wildest fancy to profoundest thought, 
The forms and colors of the mind are caught 



308 SHAKESPEARE. 

And fixed forever. Strength and skill combine 
To marshal all life's forces into line, 
Ploy and deploy them, hurl them swift as storm 
What time and where the battle waxes warm ; 
And when the tumult and the shock are done, 
Disband them all for pleasure, and to run 
Whither the wish may lead. Who tells the length, 
The breadth, the depth of that creative strength, 
Which, whether shaping world or fashioning flower. 
Leaves clear the sense of vast reserve of power 
Unused, uncalled for, and that only grows 
Fuller and richer by the might it throws 
Into achievement? Genius doth its part 
Fairest and best, when art, concealing art 
By ease and grace, turns labor into play, 
When let and hindrance vanish quite away. 
When failure comes to be a word unknown. 
And strength reserved makes strongest what is shown. 

What equipoise is here, what store of force 
Unshaken, unexhausted by the course. 
Shock, rush and whirl of passion. He 
Stands centred, balanced though the current be 
Maddest and dizziest. In the very storm, 
When all is changing place and shifting form. 



SHAKESPEARE. 309 

He stands serenely, nor is borne away 
By torrents of emotion and the play 
Of what his skill was able to evoke. 
No blast of tempest, no swift thunderstroke 
Exhausts the treasury and the boundless store 
Of force that dwells in nature. So, no more 
Of limit or exhaustion can we trace 
In Shakespeare's world. Disorder there has place 
Strictly assigned it. Fury hath its laws, 
Madness its method, sudden gusts and flaws 
Have paths and channels and a rhythmic flow 
No less than starry niotions and the slow 
Procession of the Ages. Time and tide 
Bear all along. Order and law preside 
Above the storm and over wreck and blight, 
And limit Chaos and tempestuous Night. 

How well his method with the world doth match. 
We see a part, a passing glimpse w^e catch; 
Illusions meet us ; here a strange deceit 
O'ertakes the sense and practices a cheat 
That we are loath to part with; here a hint 
Is all that we may learn, there but a tint 
Gleams from the picture ; all the rest is hid ; 
"Much lies in plan and sketch, or we are bid 



310 SHAKESPEARE. 

To gaze on wreck; here germs are doomed to death 

Before their latent force has felt the breath 

Of growing life; vague dreams, disease, unrest, 

Questions and longings, all that sways the breast 

With hope, fear, aspiration and despair. 

Are touched and traced, and put in language there. 

The very treatment seems to intimate 

The mystery round us. We are led to wait 

Further solution, and at last to fall 

Toward Wonder, as the language best of all 

Whereby to express what lies beyond the reach 

Of fancy's wing, nor shapes itself to speech. 

When Genius stoops to labor and doth bow 
Its strength to tasks, then we discover how 
The matchless gift to one may straight become 
Perpetual dower to all. The blind, the dumb. 
Gain vision, voiceful utterance, learn to see. 
Catch strains before unheard of harmony. 
Quicken, and rise, and gather might, and grow 
Beyond themselves. Strange pulses come and go. 
Bringing surprise of sudden bliss and pain, 
The flush of joy and sorrow's mist and rain. 
New sympathies put forth, and bring a sense 
Of larger being, and beyond the fence 



. SHAKESPEARE. 311 

That closes self, they reach, and interlace 
The life of each with that of all the race. 

Present is he, though viewless to the eyes. 
With life that grows and force that multiplies. 
And with the highest function, by whose word 
The living world continues to be stirred. 
Thrilled, and instructed. He abides a power, 
A presence, and a glory. Hour by hour 
The circle widens which his magic sways, 
And larger numbers listen as the days 
Bring deeper insight. What can subtly touch 
The inmost of our being with as much 
Of light and music, what so lull and wake 
The gusts of passion, what so move and shake 
The student in his closet, or the crowd 
That only knows to sob or laugh aloud. 
As Shakespeare's utterance? Not the nearest friend 
Reads us so well, or speaks the words that send 
Such quickening influence with them and reveal 
Self unto Self. Whate'er we think or feel. 
Desire or dread, or vaguely see in dreams. 
Finds voice and language; and the fiction seems 
More real than the forms we daily meet, 
And more abiding, as the hours repeat 



312 SHAKESPEARE. 

Life's marvellous story. 'T is by thought and deed, 
In book, art, institution, code, and creed. 
The Mightiest of the past are present still, 
And live, and work. Wisdom and force of will 
Escape the stroke that buries other things. 
By written word, lo. Thought has taken wings 
To soar the world and outfly all the years, 
And bear abroad the treasure that endears 
The Days unto each other. Kule and law, 
The close-packed knowledge which the Sages draw 
From large experience, will not pass to naught. 
The priceless trophies that the years have brought 
To dower the race with, grow and multiply 
Their force and worth, nor will consent to die. 
Across the gaps and chasms of Time and Space 
The Ages call, and speak as face to face. 
Although the clouds and misty pomp have gone. 
We hear the music of the early dawn; 
Remote conditions touch and grow acquaint 
Each with the other; colors strong or faint, 
And outlines sharp or vague are caught and fixed 
Where naught may fade them. Good and ill commixed, 
Yet with distinct and opposite force, we find 
Shaping the worlds of matter and of mind. 



SHAKESPEARE. 313 

Above the narrow reach of tribe and clan 

We rise, at last, to embrace the world and man, 

And bind together what the race has done, 

As product of a nature that is one. 

Common, and constant, under every guise. 

The thought, that brings the tear-drop to our eyes. 

Or color to our cheeks, hath brought the same 

Swift gush of pity, or the roseate flame. 

To eyes Ipng quenched in night, or cheeks whose glow 

Hath paled to ashes countless years ago. 

Beneath all transformations, masks of change. 

Sport of conditions, and the play and range 

Of forces hedged about by Birth and Death, 

We find one human heart, one common breath, 

One changeless law presiding over all, 

And levelling high with low and great with small. 

Next to the personal presence, is the book 
That clearly speaks the mind. Where shall we look 
For other work that keeps so well alive 
The power of him who wrought it, and shall thrive 
Defying Time and Change? Fair and compact, 
Behold the product of the highest act. 
Thought put to shape, most dainty, subtle, rare. 
The man himself in his best moods is there. 
27 



314 SHAKESPEARE. 

Yet only as creator Shakespeare shows 

His personal force. His quickening genius throws 

Life into countless forms, and disappears 

Within the offspring that through all the years 

Shall make him known. What most sublime neglect 

Of self and fame, the scholar may detect 

In all he wrote, and in the life he led. 

Careless to gather what the boughs had shed 

Of fruit immortal, he could calmly wait 

The garnering of the Ages ; doubly great 

In what he did, and then cared not to do : 

The miracle he wrought, he scarcely knew 

To be a wonder, so profound and calm 

His power and its use. Learning may cram 

The mind with facts, and formal rules may reach 

An outward order; and the schools may teach 

Much that is worth the knowing; but no rules. 

No wit nor wisdom found in all the schools. 

With help of books and passport of degrees, 

Can compass that which Genius does with ease. 

What need to question Shakespeare's learning when, 

Transcending books, he read the world of men, 

And reached results, by intuition's glance, 

Where reason halts its patient, slow advance? 



SHAKESPEARE. 315 

But there are faults, huge blemishes and blots 
Across the splendor. So the sun has spots 
That show the blacker for the brightness near, 
And larger than the earth. They must appear 
Upon the same vast scale as marks the blaze 
That warms and quickens all, and blinds the gaze 
Of too direct a vision. Shall we pass 
Judgment upon the sun through bits of glass 
That we have smoked above the sorry lamps 
Of shallow learning? When the Night encamps 
In her blue tent, the earth grows dull and cold. 
Till the dawn comes and fills the east with gold, 
Ushering the sun. Then every bush and brake 
Rings out with music; joy and song awake 
To greet his presence. As he rises higher, 
The drops of dew 'are charioted in fire 
Back to the viewless heaven whence they came ; 
The mists and clouds are fringed and lit with flame. 
And every flowering bush and branching spray 
Leans toward the light and welcomes in the day. 
The world rejoices, warms, and gleams, and glows, 
Nor cares for all the spots which Science shows 
On the vast orb whose presence puts to flight 
The blinking owls that cannot bear his light. 



316 SHAKESPEARE. 

'T was great to build, as the old builders wrought, 
Vast walls for worship, spires for climbing thought, 
And shafts of lightsome grace. And no less great 
Was it when sculptor's touch could animate 
The marble b^ock, and make its pallor show 
A beauty fair and deathless. And we grow 
Stricken with wonder when the rounded form 
Starts from the canvas, living, breathing, warm. 
Limbs full of action caught in such arrest 
That not a grace is prisoned; lips and breast 
Whose touch were rapture ; eyes whose radiant light 
Translates the soul into the sense of sight. 

Nor feel we charm of art a whit the less, 

« 

When Music aids our passions to express 

Their varying phase and fulness. But no stone 

Built into temple, or in which is thrown 

The soul of Beauty ; and no touch of brush 

That taught the canvas how to breathe and blush ; 

No skill to strike the chord, and tune the throat 

To every rise and fall and changing note 

Of most harmonious sweetness, can so take 

The mind with thrall of pleasure, or awake 

The sense of beauty, grace, and power, as when, 

Beneath the trace of Poet's marvellous pen. 



SHAKESPEARE. 317 

Speech, matched with thought and music, shows com- 
pact 
Our life in action, purpose in the act. 
Morals and manners, fashions of a day. 
And truths whose force shall never pass away. 
Below the varying harmony that 's blown 
So rich and full, we hear the undertone. 
How softly sweet, how sad, and O how true. 
That colors all the music through and through, 
And tells the transiency and shadowiness 
Of life itself, and hints the thoughts that press 
For full solution, and that lie beyond 
The world's horizon and the narrow bound 
Assigned to what is mortal. See the fair 
And gorgeous vision melt to thinnest air. 
The form and fashion pass : it is enough. 
"Sleep rounds our little life. We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of." Lo, across the stage 
What masks and shadows flit! Yet as we gauge 
The littleness of life, we still descry 
Something beyond the reach of earth and sky, 
Wherein we have a portion that can make 
The guilty tremble and the sleeper wake. 
27 ->^ 



318 SHAKESPEARE. 

The curtain rises. Here we act to-day; 
The world oul' stage and life itself the play, 
Mirth mixed with sadness, laughter blent with tears, 
Till, beckoning us, a spectral form appears ; — 
Ring down the curtain, let the lights be blown. 
Death ends the scene, and all is overthrown. 

The days withdraw their gifts ; yet but in part. 
They leave us much, the priceless things of Art, 
Trophies of wisdom. . What is worthiest, best. 
Still stays with us. Time buries all the rest 
In kind Oblivion, and with mould and moss 
Hides their decay, and blunts the edge of loss. 
Its noblest works are like the soul, and show 
Immortal vigor; they shall live and grow. 
Gathering new power and beauty, and shall deck 
Themselves more richly from the dust and wreck 
Of frailer things, which serve at once as foil 
For a perennial strength, and as the soil 
Wherein to grow and flourish. Thus we gain 
Somewhat from loss. The matchless forms remain 
AVith larger space, and gather day by day 
Fresh force from that which fades and falls away. 
Shakespeare hath written and our life is more,- 
Its meaning fuller, richer than before; 



SHAKESPEARE. 319 

The tree of Knowledge strikes a deeper root; 

On broader branches ripens rarer fruit 

Than gleamed of old upon the fabled trees 

Of dragon-guarded, fair Hesperides. 

We know ourselves the better, feel within 

New pulses stir that make us all akin. 

The Past is shown so well that therein we 

Behold the Present, find what is to be, 

Discern the process in the arrested state, 

The laws of growth, the changes that await 

Decay and death, and read, by glimpse, the end 

Toward which the shifting movements point and tend. 

Gleams of the Possible break as the dawn* 

Of a new World upon us ; we are drawn 

By shapes and forces that take form and rise 

Strong, clear, and palpable before our eyes, 

With voice and language wherein more we find 

As time and wisdom give the grasp of mind 

To compass larger meaning. Year by year 

Life's wonder breaks upon us. There appear 

New limits, as we reach at last the shore, 

And hear the ceaseless trouble and the roar 

Of waves that sway to touch of moon and sun, 

And dash to foam, although the storm is done. 



320 SHAKESPEARE. 

The deep below is stirred by starry height, 
And, as we gaze, new wonders meet the sight, 
Shores still untrodden, depths unfathomed still, 
AVhere Ocean heaves and moans, instead of rill 
That babbled o'er the shallows of our Youth. 
Beyond our plummet Shakespeare flashes truth 
On cords electric, that have force to run 
Girdling the Earth and binding man in One. 

The mortal part hath perished. Avon flows 
Where Shakespeare sleeps in undisturbed repose. 
The years have vanished, centuries have sped 
Since Death has housed him with the Mighty Dead 
But Death has failed to strike his music dumb. 
As Time moves on, the Echoes go and come 
More resonant and sweeter. By the power 
^Vith which he stirs and sways the present hour, 
By what of life his soul within us wakes, 
By what of order, beauty, strength, he makes 
Present and permanent in us, by the light 
Shed on the world, and by the sense of sight 
Quickened and trained to apprehend the grace 
Unseen before, by every silent space 
That he hath filled with deathless melody, 
He lives in us, and lordly place hath he. 



SHAKESPEARE. 321 

Present he is, as fountain and far source, 
And shares the Being he doth reinforce 
From his exhaustless fulness. What though we, 
In all the Future, scarce may hope to see 
His heir or rival, we are blest in this, 
That having him is a perpetual bliss. 
It is enough if one such man appears. 
The matchless growth of thrice a thousand years, 
To endow the Race with riches that shall last 
When thrice three thousand more have come and past. 

V 



322 IF ANY SONG. 



IF ANY SONG. 

TF any song that I have sung, 
-■- Has thrilled a pulse or stirred a tear; 
If any thought has found a tongue 
To make some dearness doubly dear; 

Then am I even more than blest, 
And henceforth happy to be mute ; 

Content, content, I sink to rest, 

And Silence now unstrings the lute. 



I 



